Mac's Safety Space

News to me

Steve MacArthur — Fri, 24 May 2013 18:55:03 +0000

Recently, a client sent me a question regarding assessing his surgical procedure rooms as wet locations. This was primarily as a function of the changes to NFPA 99, which brings the concept of wet locations and surgery back into the mix (the 2012 edition of NFPA 99 defines wet procedure locations as the “area in [...]

We are the champions

Steve MacArthur — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:06:10 +0000

Now there may be some folks out there who are thinking that there are certain topics to which I have administered beatings akin to the deceased equine, but sometimes there are other folks who appear to share at least some of my “wacky” perspectives on how to manage safety in the healthcare environment. So, I encourage [...]

He ain’t HVA, he’s my opportunity

Steve MacArthur — Fri, 10 May 2013 13:29:28 +0000

An interesting topic came across my desk relative to a January 2013 survey, and it pertains to the use of your HVA process as a means of driving staff education initiatives. During the Emergency Management interview session during this particular survey, the surveyor wanted to know about the organization’s hazard vulnerability analysis (HVA) process and how [...]

Finders and fixers: Can we get them to say something if they see something?

Steve MacArthur — Fri, 03 May 2013 15:05:54 +0000

One of things that continuously comes up on my pondering list is how to enlist the eyes, ears, noses, and fingers of frontline staff in the pursuit of the early identification of risks in the physical environment. Unless one of the facilities maintenance folks happens to be in the right place at the right time, [...]

Excellence amid chaos: A word from the land of the bean and the cod

Steve MacArthur — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:21:16 +0000

If I might beg your indulgence, I just wanted to take a moment to recognize the herculean efforts of the Boston hospital community during last week’s bombing at the Boston Marathon. All too often, when disaster strikes, hospitals don’t receive many kudos—I guess the expectation is that hospitals are always ready for the worst (true, [...]

Between the sheets…the Safety Data Sheets!

Steve MacArthur — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:54:57 +0000

Every once in a while I like to take questions from the studio audience and today I’d like to address the question of where one has to have copies of their Safety Data Sheets (in the interest of history, I’m going to resist using the “old” term Material Safety Data Sheets) in each department. So, the [...]

How does your escort service measure up? Hope you’re not letting things get too hot…

Steve MacArthur — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 14:05:17 +0000

I know we’ve (at least sort of) talked about this before (for those of you who might need some thought refreshment in that count or if you’re new to the conversation, see this previous post), but there are still some findings being generated during Joint Commission surveys this year, so I figured it might be [...]

One thing leads to another

Steve MacArthur — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 13:23:49 +0000

An interesting development on the survey front this year; it may be merely a blip on the compliance radar screen (I know of two instances in which this happened for sure—but if you folks know of more, please share), but if this signals a sea change in how The Joint Commission is administering surveys, you’d [...]

Don’t know why there’s no sun up in the sky…stormy weather!

Steve MacArthur — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 19:46:25 +0000

In case you’ve not heard (I don’t see as much info on the various list servs I monitor when it comes to the timing of the unannounced survey process), there have been some instances this year when unannounced Joint Commission surveys have been occurring months earlier than anticipated (nobody has gone outside of their official [...]

Documentary evidence: More you need to know…

Steve MacArthur — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 13:37:24 +0000

Another perpetually sticky wicket in the survey process (and we’ve discussed this, oh, once or twice before) is the timeliness of documentation from maintenance and testing vendors and the expectations of how that process has to be managed. During an ASHE-sponsored webinar last fall, George Mills posited the scenario in which there is a delay [...]