ASHE issues report on health care emergency power resiliency
The Healthcare Leadership Initiative on Maintenance of Power, a project of the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) and Powered for Patients, has released a monograph aimed at furthering discussion around safeguarding emergency power for U.S. health care facilities.
The report summarizes lessons learned about emergency power resiliency from previous disasters, explains how to assess vulnerabilities and suggests new ways to safeguard emergency power through new technologies, innovative protocols and information sharing.
A PDF of the monograph can be downloaded for free on ASHE’s website.
FGI updates formal interpretations of 2014 hospital/outpatient guidelines
The Facility Guidelines Institute has issued formal interpretations for five sections of the Guidelines for Design and Construction of Hospitals and Outpatient Facilities, 2014 edition.
The interpretations clarify certain guidelines, such as those related to gross decontamination and debridement of soiled instruments in the sterile processing room, location of hospital nurseries, isolation rooms, imaging room design and others.
Study lists key preparedness steps to handle infectious disease outbreak
A study published in BMC Infectious Diseases lists what international experts say are key recommendations to prepare health care facilities and first responders how to handle infectious disease outbreaks.
In addition to proper training and exercise drills, recommendations also include facility-related steps. Building and inspecting isolation rooms and access plans for stockpiling and distributing resources were listed among those steps. Another recommendation urges health care leaders to review components of their facility that can be used during an outbreak, such as private rooms, toilets, wards, rooms dedicated to infectious disease, rooms with negative pressure systems and safe waste disposal.
IHI, NPSF merge to improve patient safety
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and the National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) announced plans for a merger, effective May. 1
The merger involves significant new investment from IHI in patient safety. The merged patient safety teams, to be led by Tejal K. Gandhi, M.D., MPH, CPPS, NPSF president and CEO, will combine existing NPSF and IHI patient safety programs and reflect an enhanced commitment to achieve patient safety around the world.
“Improving patient safety has always been central to IHI’s mission of improving health and health care quality,” says IHI President and CEO, Derek Feeley. “Yet, safety now competes for attention and resources with other important issues such as value-driven care and population health. By joining forces, IHI and NPSF will be more effective in helping leaders and front-line clinicians meet all of today’s challenges while ensuring that patient safety remains a priority along the way.”
The merger announcement came at the start of Patient Safety Awareness Week (March 12–18), a highlight of the NPSF United for Patient Safety campaign.
“We believe that in order to make meaningful and sustained improvement in patient safety, we need to address it within a public health framework,” Gandhi says.
