Alarm Raised Over Patient Boarding in Emergency Departments

Boarding in emergency departments occurs when there is a shortage of inpatient beds for hospital admissions or there are no beds at external facilities such as psychiatric hospitals. The Joint Commission recommends that emergency department boarding not exceed four hours; however, it has become common to have emergency department boarding for days or weeks, according to ACEP.

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Share Your Innovative Quality Improvement Ideas

Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare is seeking to spotlight the best healthcare quality improvement case studies. By imparting their in-the-trenches experiences and lessons learned, the chosen case studies will shed light on an issue, practice, or principle that affects stakeholders across the modern medical staff landscape.

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Mass General Brigham Issues Patient Code of Conduct

Under a newly imposed Patient Code of Conduct, patients and visitors who disrupt care, make verbal or physical threats — including racist, sexist, discriminatory or disrespectful comments about clinicians, other hospital staff, other patients and visitors — could face a verbal reprimand, and even expulsion from the Boston hospital and possible suspension of future care access.

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Social Determinants of Health Measures, Baked into the EHR, Are Improving Patient Care

A Florida health system is putting social determinants of health (SDOH) right into the electronic health record problem list, where doctors can see and act on them. Spearheading this initiative is Jennifer Goldman, DO, chief of Memorial Primary Care at the six-hospital Memorial Healthcare System, based in Hollywood, Florida. In this interview with HealthLeaders, Goldman explains how SDOH is embedded in the EHR and used to improve outcomes.

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Six Low-Cost ‘Action Items’ to Recruit and Retain Nurses

While nearly half (46%) of the 86 respondents to the management consultant’s 2022 State of Healthcare Improvement Report say that reducing labor costs provides the greatest opportunity for cost reductions, virtually all of the respondents (98%) say they’re bumping up starting wages, 84% are offering signing bonuses, 73% are offering retention bonuses, and 47% are paying for more overtime hours.

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