The Joint Commission news and information

For public health officials across the country, the Boston Marathon bombing and the blast at a Texas fertilizer plant last week served as a wake-up call: How would their communities cope?
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The cacophony of beeps coming from patient monitors, infusion pumps and other alarm-equipped devices can desensitize clinicians and lead to serious adverse events—even deaths.
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The nation's largest hospital accreditation organization has issued a warning to hospitals about the dangers of alarm fatigue, which can occur when clinicians become desensitized to the incessant beeping of medical device alarms.
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Healthcare must be more aggressive in measuring and customizing quality improvement, Dr. Mark Chassin said.
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Everyone, it seems, wants in on the medical home business, but the medical home practice implementation consulting service TransforMED got in on the ground floor.
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Joint Commission-accredited acute-care and critical-care hospitals whose ambulatory-care offerings include primary-care services can now receive additional certification as a primary-care medical home.
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A Houston-based health system and an Oakland, Calif.-based integrated health plan are among the three 2012 recipients of the John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Awards, given jointly by the National Quality Forum and the Joint Commission.
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The Joint Commission replaced its accreditation program for long-term-care facilities with one that includes new patient-centered care standards and a certification option for specialty services.
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Language Line Services, a Monterey, Calif., provider of phone-based interpretation and translation services to healthcare, manufacturing and other industries, has acquired Dallas-based competitor Pacific Interpreters in a deal that Language Line Services says will form the largest provider of...
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Seven institutions participating in a Joint Commission and American College of Surgeons quality-improvement project to reduce colorectal surgical-site infection rates saved more than $3.7 million by avoiding 135 infections over a 2½-year period.
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