Patient safety shortcomings

While patient safety systems have improved, current systems are not close to meeting certain recommendations, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Hospitals & Health Networks magazine reports.

The researchers examined seven areas of patient safety: computerized physician order entry systems; computerized test results and assessments of adverse events; specific patient safety policies; use of data in patient safety programs; drug storage, administration and safety procedures; manner of handling adverse/error reporting; prevention policies and root-cause analysis.

Among the findings:

* While 74 percent of hospitals reported full implementation of a written patient safety plan, nine percent reported no plan.

* While a substantial percentage of hospitals have medication safety systems, only three percent reported full implementation of CPOE for medications.

The report recommends hospitals review the seven patient safety areas, assess their progress in implementing each of them, and report that progress to the community.

HIPAA privacy compliance training

Your organization may have finished implementing its new Privacy policies, but it can’t be fully compliant until it has instituted an ongoing enterprise-wide training program.

The HIPAA Privacy Rule stipulates that all members of the enterprise receive training that is appropriate to their organizational roles. This includes employees, volunteers and trainees.

While some members of the staff should receive the specialized training that applies to their jobs, everyone should receive training on the following topics, according to the Phoenix Health Systems HIPAAdvisory:* Principles and objectives of HIPAA Privacy
* Background – what is protected health information?
* Need for privacy of PHI
* Overview of HIPAA privacy regulations
* Individual’s rights regarding: privacy, control of uses and disclosures of PHI, access and accounting of records
* New organizational privacy policies and procedures
* Cooperating with investigations or audits
* How to report a violation
* Organization’s commitment to patient privacy integration