By Sean Power and Michael Wong

On August 8, The Joint Commission issued a Sentinel Event Alert on the safe use of opioids in hospitals. The Alert discussed the significance of accurate pain assessment and effective pain management plans.

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) has launched a new initiative aimed at engaging patients and other health care stakeholders as meaningful and active partners in PCORI’s efforts to build a patient-centered research community and refine its research agenda.

Parkland Health & Hospital System has reached a settlement agreement with the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) that resolves and discharges all potential litigation and enforcement actions for compliance issues prior to May 31, 2012.

Pulse, an industry-leading vendor of Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Practice Management solutions, has achieved Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) Qualified Registry status.

A unique nationwide patient safety project funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) reduced the rate of central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) in intensive care units by 40 percent, according to the agency’s preliminary findings of the largest national effort to combat CLABSIs to date.

By Susan Carr

An organization called Costs of Care is holding its third annual essay contest to draw attention to the financial impact of medical decision-making on individual patients.

Postoperative complications are the most significant independent risk factor leading to 30-day hospital readmissions among general surgery patients, according to a new exploratory study published in the September issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

Covidien, a leading global provider of healthcare products, has updated its web-based patient and caregiver education resource to offer valuable information in four new clinical categories. The website, www.patientcare-edu.com, provides resources for addressing common care needs in acute, non-acute and homecare settings.

Johns Hopkins’ Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality has received an $8.9 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the first award given as part of an ambitious new $500 million, 10-year program designed to eliminate all preventable harms that patients experience in the hospital.

Emergency Medicine Malpractice allegations were cited in about four of every 100,000 Emergency Department (ED) visits in a recent study of more than 90 hospitals across the country by CRICO Strategies. Missed and delayed diagnoses—stemming from vulnerabilities throughout the process of care in the ED—were the most prevalent allegation, cited in 47 percent of the 1,304 cases that made up the study.