Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on February 15, announced that it has finalized the process for an automatic data transfer from the American Heart Association’s (AHA’s) Get with the Guidelines—Coronary Artery Disease registry directly into its Certification Measure Information Process tool for the Comprehensive Heart Attack Center certification program.  For…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on February 15, announced that its Comprehensive Cardiac Center (CCC) Certification program has been fully revised to:   reduce redundancy  clarify requirements  closely align requirements with other Joint Commission cardiac certification programs.  The revised requirements will be effective July 1. 

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on February 15 identified the recall by GE HealthCare of its Nuclear Medicine 600/800 Series systems as Class I, the most serious.  The recall was initiated because of an issue with two mechanisms that prevent uncontrolled detector movement. If the mechanisms fail,…

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Editor's Note The Florida Commission for Independent Education has ordered seven nursing schools to pause graduation and enrollment through March, the February 15 Becker’s Hospital Review reports. The schools are allegedly connected to the sale of more than 7,600 fraudulent nursing degrees and transcripts to aspiring nurses. Of the seven…

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Editor's Note This study from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, finds that network facilities had higher negotiated prices for surgical procedures, and there is wide variability across facilities in and out of hospital networks. A total of 3,195 hospitals were included in the analysis. Among the findings: For 15…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on February 8 identified the recall by Universal Meditech Inc of its Skippack Medical Lab SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Test (Colloidal Gold) as Class I, the most serious. The recall was initiated because the tests were distributed to US customers without authorization, clearance,…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced on February 9 that it has joined with Manchester Specialty Programs, Inc, to provide insurance pricing benefits to medical staffing firms that have Health Care Staffing Services Certification from The Joint Commission. Available coverage includes workers’ compensation, professional and general liability, as well as…

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Editor's Note Phoenix-based Banner Health paid a $1.25 million settlement after potential HIPAA security violations left 2.81 million consumer’s health data exposed in a 2016 data breach, Becker’s Hospital Review reports on February 3.   The potential violations include lack of analysis to determine risks of electronic health records (EHRs),…

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Editor's Note Overall healthcare employment in the US was up in January to a seasonally adjusted 16,654,400 workers, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on February 3. That’s up 58,200 since December. Hospital employment also was up by 10,900 jobs. The overall unemployment rate for January was 3.4%, for a…

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Editor’s Note Amanda Brown, MS, RN, PCNS-BC, CNS-CP, CNOR, Nurse Professional Development Specialist, Lutheran Medical Center, Intermountain Health and recently retired Deborah Hedrick, MA, BSN, RN, NEA-BC, Director, Perioperative Services, Lutheran Medical Center, shared the creative staffing program they implemented at their institution in a Tuesday session at OR Business…

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