A rush for the vaccine, new TJC water management standards, and hackers off the hook for now

With two promising vaccines primed for release, likely within weeks, experts in ethics and immunization behavior say they expect attitudes to shift quickly from widespread hesitancy to urgent, even heated demand.

After several years of focusing on smaller improvements to eliminate preventable patient deaths, the Patient Safety Movement Foundation (PSMF) is thinking big. The group recently announced a new goal of zero preventable deaths by 2030, but with a new approach to bring about systemic change.

As the coronavirus pandemic rages nationwide during its third surge this year, resources are being strained at health systems and hospitals across the country. Virtual hospital at home programs have emerged as a viable option to ease inpatient bed capacity limitations at hospitals.

On September 11, 2020, an elderly woman in Germany was rushed to the University Hospital Düsseldorf (UKD) with a life-threatening aortic aneurysm. However, when the ambulance arrived at UKD, they discovered the facility had been crippled by a ransomware attack.

Your facility will need diagrams or schematics of its water system and a way to address stagnant water under the new requirements set out by a new standard from The Joint Commission (TJC). The new Environment of Care standard EC.02.05.02 requires hospitals to have a water management program “in accordance with law and regulation.”

Expect emergency preparedness and infection control to remain front and center during accreditation and compliance surveys for the immediate future as 2021 starts much the way most of 2020 played out-–with all hospital operations centered around a pandemic that ebbs and surges and a political environment that is seeping into all aspects of planning.

“Despite concerted efforts to improve patient safety over the past 20 years, patients continue to experience high-severity injury outcomes,” wrote lead author Ann Burke, RN, CPHRM, CPPS, senior director of risk management for Coverys before her recent retirement. “This report explores how efforts in the decade following the 10-year anniversary of To Err Is Human have not delivered optimal results. It raises vital questions and renewed areas of focus.”