Thursday, October 10, 2019

Nightingale Community Hospital Jcaho Audit Preparation: Information Management

Running Head: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AUDIT 1 Executive Summary Nightingale Community Hospital is preparing for a Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, or JCAHO, audit. In preparation of the coming audit, Nightingale has released JCAHO’s Priority Focus Areas for the hospital. The priority focus areas outlined are Information Management, Medication Management, Communication, and Infection Control. The area of focus for this assessment will be Information Management. Information management is one of the most important systems in health care.Maintaining a complete and accurate record of the patient’s health care information. The patient’s health record includes all information about the patient, the health care the patient has received, and all practitioner’s notes pertaining to the patient’s care. Compliance in Information Management ensures that the hospital maintains a high quality of patient care. Information management, as outlined by JCAHO, includes three Joint Commission Standards in the audit. The ? rst standard, IM. 02. 02. 01, which encompasses whether the hospital manages the collection of information effectively.The standard includes three Elements of Performance, or EPs. The three EPs include whether the hospital uses standardized and uniform data sets to collect information, whether the hospital uses standard, consistent terminology, abbreviations, symbols and whether the hospital follows a policy of prohibited abbreviations, symbols, and dose designations among other performance measures (The Joint Commission, 2012). Upon review of the ? rst EP as well as the reports and documentation provided by Nightingale Community Hospital, the Admission Orders form allows for consistent, pertinent patient information to be collected to ensure optimal ontinuum of care for patients. The form should be reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that critical data points are included in the data Running Head: IN FORMATION MANAGEMENT AUDIT 2 collection process and to include updated requirements. One piece of critical information that should be included on all Admission Orders is the admitting diagnosis. The forms also include pre-checked consultations and orders which may not apply to every patient who is admitted; this check marks in the boxes will need to be removed. In accordance with the second EP, the hospital uses standard terminology, de? itions, abbreviations, acronyms, symbols, and dose designations on the forms that have been provided (The Joint Commission, 2012). The third EP, which addresses whether Nightingale Community Hospital follows a list of prohibited abbreviations, is not in compliance with the Joint Commission’s standards. The graph on page three of the National Patient Safety Goal Data: Information Management report, shows the incidence of using prohibited abbreviations was not within acceptable thresholds for January or December; the goal for compliance is 99. 6%.To achieve compliance with the Joint Commission, the organization must not have more than 2 occurrences of non-compliance. The organization improved by eliminating the use of three abbreviations; qd, x3d, and sc. The organization’s graph shows that in January the abbreviation, u, was used 17% of the time and in December was used 63% which is an increase of 46%. To be in compliance with the hospital’s benchmark, the occurrences must be at or below the error threshold of . 04%. To accomplish the task, the organization will need to implement a corrective action plan.To begin, the organization will need to appoint an Information Management compliance team. The compliance team’s primary responsibilities should be limited to auditing the non-compliant records to determine trends in usage of prohibited abbreviations. When the audit is complete, the results will determine the source of the usage of prohibited abbreviations. The possibility of a speci? c department or an individual within a department making the error will be reviewed. After identifying the cause of the increase in abbreviation errors, the team will make aRunning Head: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AUDIT 3! recommendation for departmental compliance training or organization-wide compliance training. The departments leaders will be responsible for developing a compliance training plan, performing the designated training, then documenting who attended training as well as the training dates. Additional audits will be performed at three month intervals post-training to ensure Nightingale Community Hospital’s and The Joint Commission’s standards are met on a consistent basis. The next priority focus area is RC. 1. 01. 01 which ensures that the hospital maintains a separate, complete medical record for each patient. The EPs for this priority focus area include the medical record retention policy and the release of medical records policy (The Joint Commission, 2012). Nightingale Community Hospital appears to be compliant with the Joint Commission’s standards in this priority focus area. The ? nal priority focus area, RC. 01. 04. 01, which ensures that the hospital audits their medical records, has three signi? cantly more detailed EPs: 1.The hospital conducts an ongoing review of medical records at the point of care, based on the following indicators: presence, timeliness, legibility (whether handwritten or printed), accuracy, authentication, and completeness of data and information. 2. The hospital measures its medical record delinquency rate at regular intervals, but no less than every three months. 3. The medical record delinquency rate averaged from the last four quarterly measurements is 50% or less of the average monthly discharge (AMD) rate. Each individual quarterly measurement is no greater than 50% of the AMD rate (The Joint Commission, 2012).The organization appears to be compliant with all three of the EPs. However, the organization fail s to provide documentation to reflect the interval in which audits are performed Running Head: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AUDIT 4! on the medical records. The medical record delinquency rate also needs to be documented and graphed along with other measures of delinquency. The current graph outlining patient identification documentation errors shows data for two different years. Audit data needs to be consistent in all quality improvement graphs and reports.The lack of adequate documentation on policy and procedure for the various measures makes it difficult to accurately assess whether Nightingale Community Hospital is in complete compliance with the Joint Commission’s standards. The suggestion for the team members responsible for ensuring accurate data is collected for the Joint Commission’s future audit, is to create a spreadsheet listing the Priority Focus Areas as well as the Elements of Performance. The spreadsheet should reflect which EPs require documentation and wh ich require a Measure of Success as well as the Scoring Category of each.The spreadsheet will help keep the data organized and the team members can quickly see what information is missing. Staying organized and thoroughly researching each performance measurement will help ensure a successful Joint Commission compliance audit. Running Head: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AUDIT 5! References The Joint Commission. (2012). The Joint Commission Comprehensive Accreditation and Certification Manual. Retrieved from https://e-dition. jcrinc. com/MainContent. aspx. Running Head: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AUDIT 6!Hospitalaccreditation,Hospital,JointCommission,Healthcarequality,Internationalhealthcareaccreditation,TheComplianceTeam,Healthcare,MedicalrecordRunning Head: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AUDIT 1 Executive Summary Nightingale Community Hospital is preparing for a Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, or JCAHO, audit. In preparation of the coming audit, Nightingale has released JCAHO’s Priority Focus Areas for the hospital. The priority focus areas outlined are Information Management, Medication Management, Communication, and Infection Control. The area of focus for this assessment will be Information Management. Information management is one of the most important systems in health care.Maintaining a complete and accurate record of the patient’s health care information. The patient’s health record includes all information about the patient, the health care the patient has received, and all practitioner’s notes pertaining to the patient’s care. Compliance in Information Management ensures that the hospital maintains a high quality of patient care. Information management, as outlined by JCAHO, includes three Joint Commission Standards in the audit. The ? rst standard, IM. 02. 02. 01, which encompasses whether the hospital manages the collection of information effectively.The standard includes three Elements of Performance, or EPs. The three EPs include whether the hospital uses standardized and uniform data sets to collect information, whether the hospital uses standard, consistent terminology, abbreviations, symbols and whether the hospital follows a policy of prohibited abbreviations, symbols, and dose designations among other performance measures (The Joint Commission, 2012). Upon review of the ? rst EP as well as the reports and documentation provided by Nightingale Community Hospital, the Admission Orders form allows for consistent, pertinent patient information to be collected to ensure optimal ontinuum of care for patients. The form should be reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that critical data points are included in the data Running Head: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AUDIT 2 collection process and to include updated requirements. One piece of critical information that should be included on all Admission Orders is the admitting diagnosis. The forms also include pre-checked consultations and order s which may not apply to every patient who is admitted; this check marks in the boxes will need to be removed. In accordance with the second EP, the hospital uses standard terminology, de? itions, abbreviations, acronyms, symbols, and dose designations on the forms that have been provided (The Joint Commission, 2012). The third EP, which addresses whether Nightingale Community Hospital follows a list of prohibited abbreviations, is not in compliance with the Joint Commission’s standards. The graph on page three of the National Patient Safety Goal Data: Information Management report, shows the incidence of using prohibited abbreviations was not within acceptable thresholds for January or December; the goal for compliance is 99. 6%.To achieve compliance with the Joint Commission, the organization must not have more than 2 occurrences of non-compliance. The organization improved by eliminating the use of three abbreviations; qd, x3d, and sc. The organization’s graph shows that in January the abbreviation, u, was used 17% of the time and in December was used 63% which is an increase of 46%. To be in compliance with the hospital’s benchmark, the occurrences must be at or below the error threshold of . 04%. To accomplish the task, the organization will need to implement a corrective action plan.To begin, the organization will need to appoint an Information Management compliance team. The compliance team’s primary responsibilities should be limited to auditing the non-compliant records to determine trends in usage of prohibited abbreviations. When the audit is complete, the results will determine the source of the usage of prohibited abbreviations. The possibility of a speci? c department or an individual within a department making the error will be reviewed. After identifying the cause of the increase in abbreviation errors, the team will make aRunning Head: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AUDIT 3! recommendation for departmental compliance traini ng or organization-wide compliance training. The departments leaders will be responsible for developing a compliance training plan, performing the designated training, then documenting who attended training as well as the training dates. Additional audits will be performed at three month intervals post-training to ensure Nightingale Community Hospital’s and The Joint Commission’s standards are met on a consistent basis. The next priority focus area is RC. 1. 01. 01 which ensures that the hospital maintains a separate, complete medical record for each patient. The EPs for this priority focus area include the medical record retention policy and the release of medical records policy (The Joint Commission, 2012). Nightingale Community Hospital appears to be compliant with the Joint Commission’s standards in this priority focus area. The ? nal priority focus area, RC. 01. 04. 01, which ensures that the hospital audits their medical records, has three signi? cantly mo re detailed EPs: 1.The hospital conducts an ongoing review of medical records at the point of care, based on the following indicators: presence, timeliness, legibility (whether handwritten or printed), accuracy, authentication, and completeness of data and information. 2. The hospital measures its medical record delinquency rate at regular intervals, but no less than every three months. 3. The medical record delinquency rate averaged from the last four quarterly measurements is 50% or less of the average monthly discharge (AMD) rate. Each individual quarterly measurement is no greater than 50% of the AMD rate (The Joint Commission, 2012).The organization appears to be compliant with all three of the EPs. However, the organization fails to provide documentation to reflect the interval in which audits are performed Running Head: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AUDIT 4! on the medical records. The medical record delinquency rate also needs to be documented and graphed along with other measures of delinquency. The current graph outlining patient identification documentation errors shows data for two different years. Audit data needs to be consistent in all quality improvement graphs and reports.The lack of adequate documentation on policy and procedure for the various measures makes it difficult to accurately assess whether Nightingale Community Hospital is in complete compliance with the Joint Commission’s standards. The suggestion for the team members responsible for ensuring accurate data is collected for the Joint Commission’s future audit, is to create a spreadsheet listing the Priority Focus Areas as well as the Elements of Performance. The spreadsheet should reflect which EPs require documentation and which require a Measure of Success as well as the Scoring Category of each.The spreadsheet will help keep the data organized and the team members can quickly see what information is missing. Staying organized and thoroughly researching each performance me asurement will help ensure a successful Joint Commission compliance audit. Running Head: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AUDIT 5!References The Joint Commission. (2012). The Joint Commission Comprehensive Accreditation and Certification Manual. Retrieved from https://e-dition. jcrinc. com/MainContent. aspx. Running Head: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AUDIT 6!

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Nursing Agency in Nova Scotia Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Nursing Agency in Nova Scotia - Essay Example These are just some of the professional problems faced by nurses. Add to them some of the economic and political problems of their country, and you come up with a perfect recipe of a nursing headache faced by hundreds of nurses. These pose a huge challenge to government agencies and to the health care sector of a province. The nurses of Nova Scovia have taken up the challenge of an ever-challenging health care system. Through conjoined efforts of various sectors, the province was able to recognize problems faced by the nursing profession and to pose a strategy to combat these challenges. It is the foremost objective of the paper to present how the province of Nova Scovia has responded to the issues of nursing agency. A brief background of the province will set the mood for a more comprehensive discussion of the nursing profession in the province. The development of the nursing agency in the province will also be discussed. Current issues and trends in the health care system with focus on nursing agency will be discussed. Implications of the issues will also be tackled. Finally, future directions of the nursing agency in Nova Scovia will be discussed. Recommendations will also be presented in the last part of the paper. Nova Scotia is a Canadian province located on Canada’s southeastern coast. It is he second smallest province of Canada. The total land area of the province is 55,284 square kilometers. In 2006, the population of the province is 934,405. As such, it is the fourth least populated but second most densely populated province of Canada (Canadian Population, 2006). Between 60% to 75% of the population lives in rural areas. Nova Scotia is considerably more rural than Canada as a whole and more rural than most other provinces and territories. Only two provinces (New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island) and the three northern territories have a greater percentage of their

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

(Book Review) Social policy and practice in Canada Essay

(Book Review) Social policy and practice in Canada - Essay Example This book is truly the first of its kind in regards to this subject matter that has been able to provide an insightful and critical perspective on the entire evolutionary process of social policy in the country. Furthermore, Alvin Finkel proves himself as being an extraordinary author, as he divulges into issues that have never been discussed - or even thought of, in some cases - before. In order to be able to understand this book better, the entire work must be thoroughly examined and discussed, and by doing this we will not only be able to gain a more informed and understanding viewpoint on the literary work itself, but as well on the author and on what his purpose was for writing this book. This is what will be dissertated in the following. Social Policy and Practice is a book which starts off by giving a historical point of view in regards to the history of the social policies that have taken place within Canada, and one of the first issues in particular that he discusses is that of how "Canada's constitutional development reflects the history of Canada itself, its maturation into a self-governing democracy, and the steady advent of new ideas and conditions" (22). It is pointed out that the Constitution has changed considerably over the years and that this has made a strong impact on the country of Canada overall, and that these changes have greatly influenced the different social policies and practices that have come about. Finkel then begins to discuss the actual history of constitutional antecedents, and he makes particular note of the fact that Canada's political and constitutional development actually did not begin with the arrival of the first European settlers, contrary to the majority of the world's beliefs, but rather "Formal constitutional development in Canada began with the Edict creating the Sovereign Council of Quebec in 1663, whereby the French established New France as a royal province and made provision for civil government" (26). He continues for several chapters discussing the actual origin of Canada and the onset of the most basic and most intermediate social policies and practices of the countries, and uses analogies and comparisons between Canada and other industrialized countries in order to show the striking and significant differences that exist here. We can see from this alone that Canada is a country which is really in crisis in this regards, as there are a number of large and imperative issues that are facing the country as a whole. Finkel makes very clear in the very beginning of the book the fact of how important and dire it is to have proper and efficient social policies and practices in any country, and that however there are more problems in this regards with Canada than basically any other industrialized nations. He then begins on the issue of the current social policy review process in Canada, and he states that there is a setting for this current debate on the social policies in Canada which truly parallels that of most other industrialized countries in the world, and that "Common features include a secular growth slowdown topped by a recession in the early 1990s, an aging population requiring higher transfer and health-care expenditures, rising needs and costs associated with the increasing prevalence of the single-parent family, and

Monday, October 7, 2019

Nventory Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Nventory Management - Essay Example il industry has its core competency in the efficient supply chain system; it has developed a highly integrated and IT enabled logistics structure so that the demand and supply of its offerings is efficiently managed. Once the level of any product reaches a pre-determined level, the IT system automatically places an order at the supplier location. The supplier ensures that the goods are delivered within the agreed time period so that the problem of shortage is completely eliminated. Similarly, UPS, the leading postal carrier service provider ensures that it implements the direct-to-store approach effectively. In this approach, the step of distribution center is completely eliminated and the inventory is moved directly from the manufacturer to the consumer; there is no need of warehousing the stock and the holding and warehousing costs are completely eradicated from the supply chain (Muller, 2011). With the help of IT-enabled supply chain frameworks, the supplier-manufacturer relations have strengthened and the orders are fulfilled on time with shorter lead times and excellent level of the operational efficiency is attained. In order to ensure that the appropriate inventory management system is in place, the companies have made it mandatory that the best inventory management technique is implemented. For instance, Continental Airlines has ensured that it has the most efficient Materials Resource Planning (MRP) system within its business operations so that the in-flight services related to food and beverages are efficiently performed. As a result, its cost has reduced by US$40 million on yearly basis. With the help of this system, the inventory is adequately managed and it has been able to enhance its levels of proficiency and customer expectation by a significant amount (Wild, 2012). The Internet-enabled links between the partners of supply chain (inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics and distribution) have enhanced the collaboration and coordination

Sunday, October 6, 2019

Food and Beverage Operations Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

Food and Beverage Operations Management - Essay Example As the report highlights food production systems vary in methods of preparing, cooking and serving food to generate meals served to the customer. The methods differ in terms of the actual location where food production takes place, the total time from preparation to service, number of stuff required, quantity of food produced and the level of hygiene and control. The main considerations in food production include quality of raw materials, food hygiene, minimal wastage, proper food storage, suitable preparation of every food item, employees’ compliance with handling regulations and cooking foods to the proper temperature. Food production methods include centralized distribution, sous-vide, cook-freeze, cook-chill and conventional method.This essay discusses that cook-chill method is a catering system founded regular preparation and cooking of food and subsequent chilling and storage in monitored low temperature conditions. Food is then re-heated prior to consumption. The chille d food is rejuvenated in finishing kitchens that necessitate minimum staff and low capital investment. During the process goods are brought into the kitchen store, followed by preparation and cooking, portioning, packaging, blast chilling, re-heating and eventually consumption. The cook-freeze system of production entails taking goods into the kitchen, preparing and cooking, blast freezing, blast thawing, re-heating and serving when customer orders food. Food and beverage service was customarily viewed as a delivery system.

Saturday, October 5, 2019

Britain's conflict with the Mau Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Britain's conflict with the Mau - Essay Example I blame it on the period of occurrence since it is evident that most of the Mau Mau individuals were illiterate (Bradley, 1999). For this reason, they failed to see the significance of taking records on events happening during the time. According to David Anderson, he gave his figures on the number of casualties that faced judgment in relating to the crimes they committed, such as murder and rebellion against the laws set by the British government (Otero, 2010, p. 151). Many different authors such as Bernard Porter have different figures that contradict with David’s article ‘How Did They Get Away with It?’ (Porter, 2005, p. 2). The crimes committed during that time include murder of thousands of natives, the majority being the Kikuyu, brutal torture and unfair justice. The British Empire’s action towards the Kenyans was against human right (Howe, 2005, p. 138). For example, crimes such as forced labor, law wages and torture were against human rights. The co nsequences for such misguided actions include offering compensation to the family members of the Mau Mau group. In the article ‘Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World’ (2003), Niall Ferguson talks about the trial of Mau Mau suspects that was altered by either bribes or favourism. The United Nations branch in charge of protecting and defending human rights should have taken actions and let the British government face the consequences (Curtis, 2003, p. 127). For example, the consequences include facing the law, doing acts of contrition, providing health services to affected Mau Mau members and creating a memorandum of understanding with the Kenyan government and the Mau Mau (Slocum, 2005, p. 70). Analyze, evaluate and interpret complex abstract ideas and relate them to Britain's conflict with the Mau Mau In analyzing, evaluating and interpreting complex ideas, I come up with the idea that colonization was both beneficial and destructive. In relating it to Britainâ€⠄¢s conflict with Mau Mau, it is true that the British government introduced civilization, education, and large scale farming (Bradley, 1999). They improved infrastructure by constructing roads, buildings and industries that served as a source of employment to the Kikuyu and Mau Mau members. The benefits of the British colonization are innumerable and its effects are still witnessed currently since the country has progressed in international business and infrastructure (Porter, 2005, p. 4). On the contrary, the colonization had its negative impacts such as misery and suffering of the Mau Mau members, e.g., separation of family members since the men had to fight for the community (Berman and Lonsdale, 2002, p. 89). The number of deaths that were as a result of the colonization was astonishingly high since many individuals lost their lives fighting for freedom and their rights. Secondly, another idea I will bring forward is that democracy is essential when dealing with a large number of people. In relating this idea to the British conflict with Mau Mau, I believe that the British could have been welcomed peacefully if they could have used democracy as a tool for ruling (Branch, 2009, p. 54). Democracy allows people to choose policies, leaders, and regulations that would govern them.

Friday, October 4, 2019

Jamie Oliver - Spoken Language Essay Example for Free

Jamie Oliver Spoken Language Essay Jamie Oliver is a chef who has made a number of television programmes for Channel 4; in most of these programmes he is cooking and instructing the audience, although he is sometimes part of documentaries about food, for example in schools. His style of speech is very different to many of his contemporaries: he uses his distinctive style to present himself as a down to earth, friendly TV chef. Oliver is the only person talking in this transcript because he is cooking and explaining his actions for the TV show. The fact that he is cooking while talking means that there are numerous pauses in the transcript, for example ‘†¦Your burger (2) and then some rosemary’. The two second pause indicates that he is demonstrating this action on the programme; it is important in his role as a TV chef that he doesn’t just sit and talk through a recipe because viewers want to see the recipes being made and they also want to be entertained and kept interested by Oliver moving around in the kitchen. Other pauses suggest that, although this programme is probably scripted to some degree, Oliver is not reading from an autocue but retains an element of spontaneity to his speech. The pauses at the start of the transcript, ‘Hi guys (.) welcome to ministry of food (.)’, are indicators of this spontaneity, as is the non-fluent ‘er’, which is presented later on in the show. Although sometimes a sign of nervousness, in this case I think the pauses help Oliver to appe ar normal, like his viewers, so they are more likely to attempt his recipes and, of course, buy his books. Jamie Oliver’s Estuary accent and his accompanying use of London slang are also distinctive features of his talk. A Word such as ‘bash’ is a colloquial and is not a word we expect to hear on a cooking programme. We are used to words from the cooking semantic field such as ‘whisk’, ‘bake’, ‘stir’ but Oliver’s language use again makes him seem very normal, approachable and relaxed. As well as specifically accented words such as the dropping of the ‘h’ in ‘orrible’, Oliver’s elisions ‘gonna’, ‘wanna’ and ‘kinda’ demonstrate his relaxed tone. As well as using these to build a successful TV persona, Oliver could be using this informal language because he is concentrating more on the actual cooking and explaining the key details of the recipe rather than the functional language he uses. It is important that Oliver does not appear too bossy to his audience: they need to feel like they can relate to him; it is therefore important that he moderates his use of imperatives. Throughout the transcript, he softens his instructions to viewers: ‘†¦about a tablespoon of oregano (1) you want about’; ‘an egg some rosemary some (.) mustard’; this lack of precision is encouraging to people watching his because it suggests this recipe is easy to follow. The self-deprecating suggestion that Oliver is not entirely sure of what he is doing, just guessing, means that he does not assume a too-powerful position in relation to his viewers. The word ‘;literally’ implies that the solution is simple and easy, so Oliver maintains his persona as the ‘friendly, easy’ TV chef in contrast with someone like Gordon Ramsay and his very technical, scientific recipes that cannot be replicated in ordinary kitchens. In conclusion, Jamie Oliver uses many features of talk that are typical of TV chefs, such as numerous pauses and imperative instructions which are essential in his role, but he also has a very distinctive personal style of talk, characterised by his accent, use of slang and colloquial vocabulary. He uses his own idiolect to create a successful TV personality that viewers can relate to and follow as a cooking role model.