News for Nurses

Posted by Kathy Quan RN BSN at August 11, 2008

A couple of items worth bringing to your attention:

Behavior Affects Patient Safety

JCAHO recently issued a Sentinel Alert calling for all JCAHO accredited institutions to take note of findings hat patient safety is being undermined by inappropriate and unprofessional behavior exhibited by health care professionals.

Nurses, physicians, pharmacists, therapists and support staff who demonstrate intimidating and disruptive behavior toward other health care professionals, patients and others will need to be dealt with if facilities wish to comply with JCAHO standards as of January 1, 2009.

For far too long, inappropriate behavior has been ignored, unreported and never addressed for fear of reprisal or being labeled as a “whistle blower.” Research has shown that patient safety is being compromised and JCAHO has taken the lead to put an end to such issues.

You can read more about this in my post at UltimateNurse.com