Yes, you must open doors to unvaccinated surveyors

Ready or not, yes, you must let surveyors on site at your hospital or other facilities even if they haven’t been vaccinated against COVID-19 yet.

Differences in the quality of hospitals that Black and White patients access are a driver of patient safety disparities between Black and White patients, a new report says.

Racial care disparities have been a concern in U.S. healthcare for decades. These disparities have drawn heightened attention during the coronavirus pandemic because Black, Hispanic, American Indian, and Alaska Native COVID-19 patients have experienced disproportionately high rates of negative outcomes including mortality.

There are golden opportunities to improve patient safety and patient experience at healthcare organizations, a new top executive at Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Spectrum Health says.

Spectrum Health has hired James Moses, MD, MPH, to serve as senior vice president of quality, safety, and patient experience at Spectrum Health West Michigan, which is one of two healthcare delivery divisions at the health system. He is set to begin working in his new role in April.

Moses comes to Spectrum Health from Boston Medical Center, where he has served as chief quality officer and vice president of quality and safety. The board-certified pediatrician and pediatric hospitalist earned his medical degree at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.

Sexual and gender minority people are not a modern phenomenon, but it’s only been in the last two decades that the healthcare industry has started rewriting policies and procedures that once excluded or ignored LGBTQIA+ patients and their health issues. Those issues include high rates of substance abuse, mental health disorders, and suicidal ideation.

To aid in the reform effort, leading clinical experts and educators from The Fenway Institute, Fenway Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Massachusetts General Hospital wrote two reports aimed at giving healthcare providers the knowledge and the tools to properly treat LGBTQIA+ patients.

“Although acceptance of LGBTQ people is growing, sexual and gender minorities continue to fear discrimination and bias, including in health care settings. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people report delaying medically necessary care and hiding their sexual orientation and gender identity to avoid a stigmatizing encounter with a clinician or other health care staff,” the authors wrote.

As anyone in emergency planning knows, part of being prepared is having an emergency recovery plan, one that lets you also go about the business of caring for patients.

The COVID-19 public health emergency won’t last forever. Although it is stretching into its second year, you might be realizing that while your staff must maintain infectious disease protocols as they concentrate care on coronavirus patients, the transition back to normal—whatever that is—will be a challenge.

Inside Accreditation & Quality checked in with frequent contributor Ivan W. Gowe, MS, BS, MLS(ASCP)CM, CIC, an infection preventionist in quality services at Margaret R. Pardee Memo­rial Hospital in Hendersonville, North Carolina.