Infection Prevention and Control is a Team Sport
Knowing the staggering impact increased HAIs can have on health systems only further emphasizes how critical it is for Risk Management teams to leverage the expertise and knowledge of Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC) and Antimicrobial Stewardship teams to understand and mitigate HAIs in their care populations.
Why Creating a Trauma-Informed Environment is Crucial to Helping Traumatized Nurses Heal
For nurse and hospital leaders to help their nurses handle and heal from trauma, they must create a trauma-informed culture. A trauma-informed program, system, or person has a knowledge and understanding of trauma and its far-reaching effects, which, in some nurses is caused by seeing patients die; tending to patients who can’t get relief from symptoms; patient and family aggression; feeling overextended because of inadequate nurse-to-patient ratios; frustration; and helplessness, according to a 2017 study.
Plant the Seeds of Change with Just-in-Time Coaching
By Lori Moore, MPH, BSN, RN, CPPS Hand hygiene has been recognized as one of the most important measures to reduce germs in healthcare facilities, and educating healthcare workers to the basic fundamentals has become a cornerstone of hand hygiene programs.1-2 While providing education and conveying the importance and need for hand hygiene is … Continued
‘Are You Going to Keep Me Safe?’ Hospital Workers Sound Alarm on Rising Violence
COVID unit nurses also have shouldered extra responsibilities during the pandemic. Duties such as feeding patients, drawing blood and cleaning rooms would typically be conducted by other hospital staffers, but nurses have pitched in on those jobs to minimize the number of workers visiting the negative-pressure rooms where COVID patients are treated.
New IDSA President: ‘The COVID-19 Pandemic Is Not Going Anywhere Fast’
Daniel McQuillen, MD, took on the leading role at the IDSA last week. In addition to serving as president of the IDSA, he is a senior physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Beth Israel Lahey Health and Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, and an assistant professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston.
How Hunterdon Medical Center Helps Its Nurses Cultivate Resiliency
Hospitals and health systems should foster nurses’ resilience by integrating support and education—not only to help them successfully cope with their high-stress job, but to provide high-quality care, the study says.
Don’t Gift Surveyors the ‘Low-Hanging Fruit’ of Hazardous Holiday Decorations
Joint Commission surveyors can cite decorations under five—that’s right, five—different Life Safety standards, including two standards related to hospital areas designated ambulatory healthcare occupancies, outpatient clinics, or areas within a leased building where the hospital offers accredited services.
Improving Healthcare During the Post-COVID Era
In the newest Women in Healthcare Leadership podcast episode, Amy Compton-Phillips shares Seattle-based health system Providence’s COVID-19 learnings, how to improve patient safety and quality, and offers leadership advice.
U.S. Prisons Were COVID Hothouses During Pandemic First Wave
Writing in JAMA, University of California at Los Angeles researchers looked at COVID-19 cases and deaths among U.S. federal and state prisoners for 52 weeks from April 5, 2020, to April 3, 2021 and compared these rates with the overall U.S. population.
Nursing Students Who Refuse a Mandated COVID-19 Vaccine Could be Disenrolled
The NCSBN and eight other leading nursing organizations, including the American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL) and the American Nurses Association (ANA), issued a policy brief to provide guidance to boards of nursing and nursing education programs receiving requests from students for alternate clinical experiences when a program’s clinical sites require the COVID-19 vaccine.