Quality & Patient Safety

Health care providers should not use endoscope connectors labeled for use without reprocessing between patients because they carry a risk of cross-contamination, the Food and Drug Administration announced today. “To date, the FDA has not received acceptable testing to demonstrate the safe use of…

The Food and Drug Administration today released a plan to improve medical device safety. The plan calls for increased funding to develop an active surveillance capability for FDA’s National Evaluation System for health Technology (NEST) and conduct post-market studies to evaluate specific safety…

AHA Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer Jay Bhatt, D.O., yesterday participated in a panel on building a sustainable healthy community as part of the National Minority Quality Forum’s annual conference on health disparities. The panelists called health disparities an ongoing, vexing…

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services April 18 will host a webinar on the hybrid hospital-wide 30-day readmission measure that hospitals may voluntarily report in calendar year 2018 for the hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting program. Presenters will provide an overview of the measure,…

This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a Vital Signs report identifying the threats associated with antibiotic resistance (AR) and recommending “early and aggressive action” to prevent resistant pathogens from spreading in health care facilities. The containment…

Providence Health & Services Launches Telehealth Service  Providence Health & Services has released an on-demand store-and-forward telehealth service in Oregon, giving residents an mHealth app that’s designed to give consumers quick access to care for common health issues, writes Eric…

Patient Safety Awareness Week is an opportunity for hospitals and health systems to reflect on their patient safety journey and share their progress.    Of course, patient safety is the top priority every day at every hospital across the country. And data released recently by the…

Unplanned hospital readmissions fell by 70,000 for Medicare Part C patients between 2011 and 2015, avoiding more than $1 billion in health care costs, according to the latest report on the impact of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services quality measures on patients and costs. Among other…

Patient Safety Awareness Week will wind down with a Twitter chat Friday on building a culture of safety. Use the hashtag #PSAW18 to join the conversation from 12-1 p.m. ET. For more on Patient Safety Awareness Week, sponsored by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and National Patient…