Sounds like a great article. If all the money spent on spiffing up aesthetics in facilities prior to JCAHO visits were instead spent on nursing or support staff salaries, then patient care would improve!
What frustrates the heck out of me is that I work at a facility where ALL the documentation is via computer. Progress notes and orders are done via computer. So how the heck are they going to confuse QD and QID or TIW when they are typewritten?
Some brainiac at JCAHO apparently also suggested that each facility come up with their own personalized abbreviation or two to eliminate because of potential confusion. The VA chose "cc" to eliminate.
So now we can't write CC for chief complaint, nor can we write cc for 150 cc contrast given during cath.
Violators at my facility get regular emails alerting you that you used a verboten abbreviation. One of the fellows got so aggravated with the emails that he just quick reading his mail!
Don't even get me started about the marking of the surgical site issue when it comes to invasive cardiology.
Arrgghhh. If JCAHO was vaporized by Darth Vader we would probably be better off.
AMEN! It's totally ridiculous. I just happen to manage to be off everytime they come around, but I can never escape the ungodly amount of "preparation" that goes into the pre-visit.
Now they will be unannounced...great...
JCAHO once loved Padme, but the lack of ultrasound equipment to detect her twins made JCAHO mad. Now JCAHO will make hospitals pay for their incompetence by nit picking every last speck of dust!
I am not a physician, but merely one of the IT staff at a large hospital in Chicago. JCAHO is irritating to watch because senior management gets whipped into a frenzy and it flows down hill. I had one manager a long time ago suggesting that we take off our badges when we are on campus so we could avoid the odd event that JCAHO were to poll us on random questions.
And truthfully, it doesn't matter that as an organization we do really amazing stuff. I'm always in awe of what people do inside the walls here, but JCAHO is more concerned about the minutia than the large scale.
I seriously think that JCAHO prep is more serious than greeting royalty. I see the point of them, but not the power that they wield.
Just went through JCAHO. Comical. Let's lock up the Barium in Radiology...God only knows how many people die of stolen Barium a year.
What a waste of money.
One could probably set up a system that would monitor the phone system in the hospital to know when JCAHO had arrived - a sudden massive wave of urgent phone calls ensues every time. So much for "surprise" inspections (and what do they expect?).
Aside from various things that one can see as valuable in the official information about hospital requirements, what you really end up with are the particular nits that the individual inspector decides to pick, and some of them obviously have some strange attitudes.
We had some eyebrows raised on our Rehab unit that we allowed (some) patients to have meds at bedside. Well, we do this to make sure that when they go home they know how to take the medications -- they're monitored, we keep track of what they're doing, and in the end we can show that yes, they do know how to take their medicines. But this isn't on the JCAHO radar screen.
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