Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on August 16, announced a strategic affiliation with the National Quality Forum (NQF) in an effort to accelerate improvements across the continuum of patient care and change the focus from competing measures to advancing key outcomes. The NQF will maintain its independence in developing consensus-based…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on August 15, issued “Sentinel Event Alert 67: Preserving patient safety after a cyberattack.” The Alert focuses on risks associated with cyberattacks and provides recommendations on how healthcare organizations can deliver safe patient care if a cyberattack occurs. Actions suggested by The Joint Commission include:…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), on August 14, identified the recall by Philips Respironics of its Trilogy Evo, Evo 02, EV300, and Evo Universal Ventilators as Class I, the most serious. The recall was initiated after detecting dust and dirt from the environment in the air path…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on August 9, announced that it is revising a performance measure for the advanced Total Hip and Total Knee Replacement (THKR) Certification Program—THKR-5: Postoperative Functional/Health Status Assessment—to align with a similar Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) measure. The recently adopted CMS performance measure—Hospital-Level,…

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Editor's Note The American Hospital Association (AHA), on August 9, announced that COVID-19 HIPAA rules for telehealth would expire at 11:59 pm. The Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) implemented a HIPAA policy for telehealth during the COVID-19 public health emergency, which provided enforcement discretion…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on August 9, announced the publication of a new guide from Joint Commission Resources (JCR) that provides basic knowledge and awareness for healthcare workers (HCWs) about the ways in which patients are diverse. The guide focuses on aspects of diversity that include ethnicity, race, culture,…

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Editor's Note In an opinion piece, Katie Boston-Leary, PhD, MBA, MHA, NEA-BC, director of nursing programs at the American Nurses Association (ANA), says that nurses want to practice nursing and not be the “organizational sponge” that absorbs all other tasks that other professionals will not, can not, or are unavailable…

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Editor's Note This study, led by researchers at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, examines opportunities to improve inequitable postoperative outcomes by evaluating unmet social health needs by race, ethnicity, and insurance type. Outcomes included poor health status (self-reported), socioeconomic status (income, education, employment), and unmet social health needs (food,…

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Editor's Note The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), on August 1, released new interactive tools and resources to help collect patient data in advance of mandatory reporting periods. Orthopedic care teams are urged to take note because patient-reported outcome measures (eg, pain, physical mobility, emotional well-being, and experience of…

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Editor's Note The COVID-19 Omicron subvariant EG.5 is now the dominant variant in the US, replacing Arcturus XBB.1.16, according to the August 4 US News & World Report. EG.5 accounts for more than 17% of new COVID-19 cases in the US in the past 2 weeks, and it is increasing…

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