Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on April 12, announced that it and Kaiser Permanente are still accepting applications for the 2023 Bernard J. Tyson National Award for Excellence in Pursuit of Healthcare Equity. The award, now in its third year, gives national recognition to a healthcare organization for an intervention…

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Editor's Note ECRI, on April 10, released a statement saying it is “deeply disturbed” by reports that nearly 99% of US hospitals have third-party tracking on their websites that transfers patient data to technology and social media companies, advertising firms, and data brokers. Besides the violation of privacy, ECRI says…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on April 5, announced that it had updated its Health Care Equity Accreditation Standards & Resource Center to assist organizations in meeting their healthcare equity standards. The new resources include: Six new Snapshots (brief synopses of approaches used by other organizations) from Cook County Health…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on April 4, released its Sentinel Event Data 2022 Annual Review, which covered serious adverse events from January 1 through December 31, 2022. There were 1,441 sentinel events reported in 2022, a 19% increase over 2021, and a 78% increase over 2020, with COVID-19 continuing…

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Editor's Note The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), on March 29, issued a news report urging the public to learn to recognize and respond to an opioid overdose, now that the Food and Drug Administration has approved naloxone for sale over the counter. Naloxone, which is commonly sold as a…

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Editor's Note This study led by researchers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that federal actions taken to expand telehealth use for Medicare patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) and to facilitate provision of medications for OUD (MOUD) were associated…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission and Kaiser Permanente on March 15 announced that they are now accepting applications for the 2023 Bernard J. Tyson National Award for Excellence in Pursuit of Healthcare Equity. The award, now in its 3rd year, recognizes a healthcare organization for an intervention that led to…

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Editor's Note ECRI, on March 13, released its annual Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns, which identifies potential sources of danger for patients and healthcare staff. ECRI also provides detailed steps that organizations can take to prevent adverse incidents. Many of the concerns on the list are exacerbated by ongoing staffing…

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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 This study from the University of South Carolina, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, finds that between December 2019 and December 2021, nearly one-third of large, tax exempt hospitals improved their charity care policies. Across the 2-year period, 127 of 151 (84.15) hospitals updated their policies, and 77 (51.0%)…

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