Are you ready for the return of surveyors this winter?

According to The Joint Commission, intimidating and disruptive behavior in healthcare settings is associated with medical errors, poor patient satisfaction, and preventable adverse outcomes. In June, the AMA Board of Trustees recognized the health consequences of violent police interactions and called racism an urgent threat to public health.

“The strong support shown for telehealth, as evidenced in these results, reinforces the knowledge that telehealth is critical to how we deliver healthcare today,” said study co-author Steve Ommen, MD, medical director, Mayo Clinic Center for Connected Care.

The new survey, which was conducted by the Primary Care Collaborative, The Larry A. Green Center, and 3rd Conversation, features information collected from more than 580 primary care clinicians in 47 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam. The survey, which was conducted from Oct. 16 to Oct. 19, has several data points that reflect the status of primary care practices during the fall stage of the pandemic

Without addressing the root causes of hand hygiene noncompliance before COVID-19, facilities will fall back into bad patterns after the pandemic says Klaus Nether, DHS, CSSMBB, the executive director of high reliability product delivery at The Joint Commission’s Center for Transforming Healthcare.

As promised, surveys are resuming across the country. And as promised, one of the main items of discussion is how well organizations have responded to the coronavirus pandemic—including their handling of infection control (IC) and implementation of long-term emergency management (EM) operations.