The Joint Commission has revised its processes for rendering Accreditation with Follow-up Survey (AFS) and Preliminary Denial of Accreditation (PDA) decisions. These changes are intended to streamline the post-survey process and expedite the resolution of Requirements for Improvement (RFIs). Effective immediately, the following changes are applicable to any organization that is seeking to renew...

In hospitals, ethics consultations and committees were a product of the 1970s in the United States of America (US). The US administration encouraged their development particularly when the influential 1983 report of the President’s Commission for the study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, entitled Deciding to Forgo Life-Sustaining Treatment, gave a signifi...

The present study investigates patient perceptions of the quality of discharge instruction by assessing inpatients' ratings of care and service in the United States over the past 5 years (1997-2001) (n = 4,901,178). As expected, patients' ratings of "instructions given about how to care for yourself at home" showed a strong, consistent positive relationship with overall patient satisfaction fro...

With the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Advanced Wireless Services (AWS-3) auction of frequencies in the 1695-1710 MHz, 1755-1780MHz, and 2155-2180MHz bands, users of the Aeronautical Mobile Telemetry (AMT) band from 1755-1850MHz, known as Upper LBand, could be greatly affected. This paper takes an initial look at how the 1755-1780MHz band will be used by the cellular carriers and pres...

Benchmarking of clinical laboratory activities has become a tool used increasingly to enable administrators and managers to obtain an independent evaluation of the performance of the laboratory and identify opportunities for improvement. Benchmarking is particularly important because of the diversity and complexity of the various sections of the laboratory. The critical component of laboratory ...

In June 2003, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) recommended: "As a general policy, use air or FiO2 at < or =30% for open delivery (consistent with patient needs)" to prevent surgical fires. One way to interpret JCAHO's recommendation is that 100% O2 should not be indiscriminately used, and anesthesia providers should have the ability, consistent with pati...

Bioethics, clinical ethics, and professional ethics are mature, welldeveloped fields of applied ethics that focus on medical research, patient autonomy and patient care, patient– healthcare professional relationships, and issues that arise in clinical and other medical settings. However, despite these developments, little attention has been paid to the organizational aspects of healthcare in th...

A LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY for assessing and relieving pain has been cited as a major contributor to the undertreatment of pain in hospitalized patients. The release of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO) pain management standards in 2001 has resulted in widespread interest in health care facilities to assess pain and implement protocols and care plans that ...

CONTEXT Privileging involves the granting of permission to perform specific professional activities under the jurisdiction of a governing body's (hospital) authority. In 1951, the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Hospitals (later renamed the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations) was formed to codify the process of hospital assessment. In the early part of the 20...