Editor's Note The Joint Commission on March 8 announced that it has approved new and revised requirements for hospitals and critical access hospitals certified under the Patient Blood Management Certification program, effective July 1. The requirements have been updated to maintain alignment with the Association for the Advancement of Blood…

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Editor's Note The American College of Surgeons (ACS) on March 6 announced that a group of leading medical and public health professional organizations are forming the Healthcare Coalition for Firearm Injury Prevention. The group is using a comprehensive public health approach to advance firearm injury prevention through education of healthcare…

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Editor's Note Although most people have largely returned to normal activities, mental health is still a concern, finds surveys conducted between March 2020 and September 2022 by Pew Research Center and other organizations. Among the findings: 41% of adults experienced high levels of psychological distress at some point in the…

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Editor's Note California health officials, on March 3, announced plans to relax guidance on masking in healthcare and other indoor high-risk settings and to end vaccination requirements for healthcare workers, effective April 3, the March 3 Los Angeles Times reports. Also, starting March 13, those who test positive for COVID-19…

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Editor's Note The Biden Administration on March 2 released a National Cybersecurity Strategy that includes a comprehensive approach to accomplish the following: “strengthen collaboration with stakeholders to defend critical infrastructure; disrupt and dismantle threat actors; shape market forces to drive security and resilience; invest in a resilient future; and forge…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on March 1 announced a revision to Performance Improvement (PI) standard PI:01.01.01, Element of Performance (EP) 4, which has to do with data collection on significant discrepancies between preoperative and postoperative diagnoses. The revision was made after healthcare organizations expressed confusion with the requirement. The…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on March 1 announced that updated Accelerate PI Dashboard Reports, which provide performance measurement data on certain quality measures, are available for hospitals (HAPs), critical access hospitals (CAHs), ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), and nursing care centers (NCCs). ASC reports contain data through the fourth quarter…

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Editor's Note Between 2016 and 2021, some 7,600 fraudulent nursing degrees were sold to individuals so they could qualify to sit for the National Council of State Boards of Nursing exam (NCLEX), the February 27 Yahoo News reports. NCLEX is a rigorous exam that usually takes about 5 hours to…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, National Committee for Quality Assurance, and National Quality Forum announced, February 22, the release of a joint statement on digital health data exchange of social determinants of health (SDOH) assessments.  The statement begins with: “Collecting and exchanging data on SDOH connects individuals, healthcare organizations, and…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on February 22 updated the Class I recall of GE HealthCare’s Nuclear Medicine 600/800 Series systems. The recall was initiated by GE HealthCare after identifying an issue with two mechanisms that prevent uncontrolled detector movement—a risk that the ball screw, which serves…

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