A 1993 national poll found that 34% of adults in the United States report having witnessed a man beating his wife or girlfriend and that 14% of women report that a husband or boyfriend has been violent with them (1). Studies suggest that as many as 30% of women treated in emergency departments (EDs) have injuries or symptoms related to physical abuse (2). A national health objective for the yea...

management of a patient’S pain iS an important goal in outpatient primary care offices. Increasingly, panels such as The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) include pain assessments as a marker for quality of care. A physician’s ability to recognize pain and document pain management plans has important implications for accreditation and reimbursement, as well a...

Hospitals have made slow progress in meeting the Institute of Medicine's patient safety goals, and implementation of safety systems has been inconsistent. The next logical question is this: What organizational characteristics predict greater implementation of patient safety systems, in terms of both extent of systems and progress over time? To answer this question, a survey was administered to ...

The evolution of quality assurance as an essential component of a scientific, objective approach to health care delivery, and its implications for the profession of occupational therapy are presented. A review is made of the economic, ethical, psychological, and legislative forces that have influenced the development of quality assurance over the past century, a development that has seen times ...

The Joint Commission recently announced its new Community-Based Palliative Care (CBPC) Certification option for accredited home care organizations. This specialty certification, which recognizes home health and hospice organizations that provide community-based palliative care to patients and their families at home, will be effective July 1, 2016. Using the results of a market research study of...

Perspectives, pages 8–13), The Joint Commission will implement new memory care accreditation requirements for nursing care centers effective July 1, 2014. To build on these new requirements, which have been designed in response to the prevalence of dementia in nursing homes, The Joint Commission will also offer a new optional certification product for accredited nursing care centers. The option...

Prior to 2004, only two states, Pennsylvania and Illinois, had enacted legislation requiring healthcare facilities to collect nosocomial or healthcare-associated infection (HAI) data intended for public disclosure. In 2004, two additional states, Missouri and Florida, passed disclosure laws. Currently, several other states are considering similar legislation. In California, Senate Bill 1487 req...