Review Patient Falls, Especially Those Involving Infants, As Surveys Resume

TJC reminded organizations that, according to its Quick Safety Report No. 40, issued in 2018, “Preventing newborn falls and drops,” that maternal risk factors for infant falls included problems related to Cesarean birth, use of pain medication within four hours, issues on the second or third postpartum night, specifically midnight to early morning hours, and drowsiness associated with breastfeeding.

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Nurse Officers Stave Off COVID-19 Burnout With Help of Interim Execs

Much of the burnout discussion has focused on frontline and direct care nursing staff, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. But chief nursing executives and other nurse leaders operate within the same volatile environments while also managing organizational, disciplinary, and operational stress, according to the study, Nurse Leader Burnout: How to Find Your Joy.

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Solving Fragmented Behavioral Healthcare With Data

While funding is no doubt a critical part of the solution, fragmented care remains a major stumbling block when connecting people with behavioral health services. Through her organization, Dr. Nishi Rawat is seeking to create greater transparency between behavioral health and medical care providers to address the fragmentation in data and care.

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Improving Antimicrobial Stewardship: AAAHC Publishes New Toolkit

The toolkit offers a core elements checklist for assessing policies and procedures, treatment recommendations in primary care taken from the CDC, and a flow chart that maps out considerations for surgical procedures. It also provides recent information on potential threats to antimicrobial stewardship due to COVID-19.

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Advance Care Planning: A Quality and Patient Safety Must

A year living through a pandemic has made this issue even more abundant—older patients, and those with chronic conditions, have been among those most at risk for severe, life-threatening conditions, including those attached to COVID-19. And what happens when one of these patients is placed on a ventilator, unable to voice their wants in terms of treatment? To avoid these scenarios, the industry needs to ensure providers, caregivers, patients, and families are engaged in advance care planning discussions.

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Temperature Monitoring Technology for COVID-19 Vaccines

With the death toll from COVID-19 reaching staggering numbers, vaccines still in limited supply, and a focus on vaccine distribution across the globe, healthcare systems and others involved in administering vaccines are doing everything they can to protect their quotas, both to support the health of their communities and to avoid the negative publicity of an unnecessary loss. All of these factors point to the importance of effective, efficient temperature monitoring—so it is no wonder the CDC requires every vaccine storage unit to be equipped with a temperature monitoring device.

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Crossing the Digital Divide for SDOH

Data exists that can help patients achieve better healthcare, but the industry itself must ensure that this data is available, accessible, and understood. Organizations and providers often have access to some of the data in question; the key, though, is connecting healthcare stakeholders and patients to complete information that enables informed decisions, which the industry has not yet perfected.

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