A funny thing happened on the way somewhere…
One of the benefits of doing a lot of traveling and having a fairly well-developed case of OCD is having plenty of time to ponder ponderables and imponderables (I think it may be more fun than it...
View ArticleI saw Mommy kissing the senior engineer…
Late last week, The Joint Commission provided information regarding the mid-term edition of this year’s Survey Activity Guide (SAG—and no, I will not make any gratuitous remarks about that particular...
View ArticleUnderneath the accreditation manual last night!
And just when you thought you’d opened up all the presents under the tree, you see one way in the back and it’s another one from our friends at The Joint Commission (TJC)…but not just then, our friends...
View ArticleI’m-a gonna raise a fuss and I’m-a gonna raise a holler!
Sometimes, particularly during the summer, it can be a challenge to come up with compelling—hopefully your definition of compelling and my definition of compelling match up pretty well—material for the...
View ArticleLeave it better than you found it!
This past week (and this coming week as well), I’ve been on vacation in Maine (code name: A Beautiful Place by the Sea), which affords me the luxury of observing a lot of human behaviors, some...
View ArticleSame as it ever was… same as it ever was… same as it ever was…
As the back-to-school sales reach their penultimate conclusion, I look back on the year so far and am amazed at how quickly we’ve blown through fully two-thirds of 2015—yow! For a while it seemed like...
View ArticleCue the drum roll: Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Portal of Perception!
Not so very long ago, The Joint Commission and ASHE announced the creation of an information resource to assist with all those pesky EC/LS findings that have been reproducing like proverbial rabbits...
View ArticleThe final countdown
One of the things I’ve noticed in my journey through the highways and byways of healthcare is that we do an awful lot of education. The one compelling example that springs to mind is the challenges...
View ArticleReducing the length of stay: Not yours, but somebody who visits but once in a...
One of the most interesting parts of my job is helping folks through the actual Joint Commission survey process. Even as a somewhat distant observer, I can’t help but think that the average survey (in...
View ArticleIf you set things up correctly…they will still find stuff!
Those of you who are frequent readers of this little space are probably getting tired of me harping on this subject. And while I will admit that I find the whole thing a tad disconcerting, I guess this...
View ArticleAfter all these years, it’s true: Your mother doesn’t work here
Over the years, once or twice I’ve ventured into staff areas as I’ve toured various facilities—sometimes you find some things that are a little disconcerting (electric grills, various electric...
View ArticleIf being accredited by you is wrong, I don’t want to be right…
I’ve recently encountered some survey results that gave me pause and I wanted to take a moment to share some thoughts on the perceived infallibility of regulatory surveys (and consultants), some of...
View ArticleOne score and no years ago: Guess who’s 20?
John Palmer, who edits Briefings on Hospital Safety, among other nifty periodicals, asked me to weigh in on the 20th anniversary of the EC chapter, with a particular emphasis on how (or where) things...
View ArticleI’m getting too old for this shift…
Because of the nature of the survey process as currently administered by our good friends in Chicago, I periodically have the opportunity to work with clients after they have been surveyed, sometimes...
View ArticleCome together, right now over…more heavy breathing
Talk about your regulatory supergroups: it’s almost like the second coming of Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young and all manner of goodness or maybe the Fantastic Four (or in this case, the Spectacular Six)!...
View ArticleA most excellent start…
Recently, the AORN Journal published an editorial penned by Kelly Putnam, the managing editor, highlighting the role nurses play in preventing surgical fires (see here for detail). The piece raises a...
View ArticleYou know, I really find you quite attractive (human vs. technological magnetism)
Sometimes, particularly around the solstice, I struggle to come up with something (relatively) fresh upon which to pontificate—something that goes a little beyond the typical closing out of the safety...
View ArticleOnly a few shopping days left before the next phase of TJC’s clinical alarm...
Just in time for the holidays, our good friends at the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (more acronymically known as AAMI) have released an Alarm Compendium (isn’t that a...
View ArticlePortal chortling: Who wants to be surveyed at Christmas?
I know that this is typically characterized as a season of giving, but I have somewhat of a huge favor to ask of you folks out there in the depths of the blogosphere, so I hope you will bear with me....
View ArticleIFU? No, you IFU!
As this little screed represents the closing of the 2015 blogging season (I figure there’s gotta be a lumberjack tie-in—blogging and logging are just too close for words), I’m going to try and keep it...
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