All Entries in the "Amanda Brown" Category
Choosing the Right Tool for Hospital Risk Assessment: Focused Risk Vulnerability Analysis
by Amanda Brown, RN, MSM, CIC Part I of this series outlined the power of simple risk assessment to identify, mitigate, and eliminate hazards in the day-to-day operations of a hospital. Parts II and III will present approaches to risk assessment that are more complex and require more attention from multidisciplinary teams. In this installment, [...]
New Study Provides Concrete Guidelines for Preventing Surgical Site Infections . . . Finally
After reading Pam Belluck’s New York Times article on preventing hospital-acquired surgical site infections, I couldn’t help but cheer. The study published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine that focused on skin preparation brings us closer to answering a decades-old question: “Which product do we use to prep the skin before surgery?”
National Patient Safety Goal 7: Three Easy Tips for Compliance
In 2009, three new requirements were added to NPSG 7 to aid in the ongoing campaign to prevent healthcare-associated infections. For each of these new requirements, there are three actions that Nurse Managers can take to facilitate compliance and – even better – protect patients.
Infection Prevention Caught in Squeeze on Budgets
By Amanda Brown, RN, BSN, MSM, CIC The economic impact on hospitals continues to play out across the country. The latest area of focus seems to be the resources provided to manage infection control programs. Even as the H1N1 pandemic looms, half of the IC professionals responding to a recent survey reported reductions in [...]