Becker's Hospital Review

48 CMO / CARE DELIVERY Joint Commission to add more suicide risk screening requirements for hospitals By Mackenzie Bean T he Joint Commission will require health- care organizations to maintain screening tools and other procedures for patients at risk of suicide as part of its accreditation process, starting July 1. e revised requirements, included in e Joint Com- mission's National Patient Safety Goal resource, are based on more than a year of research and analysis from multiple expert panels. e Joint Commission created the NPSG in 2002 to help accredited healthcare facilities improve patient safety. e document has included suicide prevention as an element of performance for hospitals since 2007. e NPSG will now assess hospitals on the following elements of performance for suicide prevention: • Environmental risk assessment and action to minimize suicide risk • Use of a validated screening tool to assess pa- tients at risk • Evidence-based process for conducting suicide risk assessments of patients screened positive for suicidal ideation • Documentation of patients' risk and the plan to mitigate • Written policies and procedures addressing care of at-risk patients and evidence they are followed • Policies and procedures for counseling and fol- low-up care for at-risk patients at discharge • Monitoring of implementation and effec- tiveness, with action taken as needed to improve compliance "e science of suicide prevention has really ad- vanced over the past few years," David Baker, MD, executive vice president for the division of healthcare quality evaluation at e Joint Commission, said in a news release. "We had not updated the NPSG since its original release in 2007. is revised version and the accompanying resource compendium will more robustly support healthcare organizations in prevent- ing suicide among patients in their care." n 23,000 patients received ineffective vaccines from California health clinic By Harrison Cook A bout 23,000 patients may have received ineffective vaccines or medications between October 2017 and November 2018 at Ventura (Calif.) County Health Care Agency, according to VC Star. Most of the patients were adults, but about 2,300 patients were 18 or younger and about 1,255 patients were under the age of 6. Ventura County Health Care Agency is contacting high-risk patients, such as families with children under 6 and those with chronic conditions, and urging them to get revaccinated at its clinics for free. Health officials attribute the ineffective vaccines to a packaging process change that took place in October 2017. The agency said it moved to the new packaging process to make sure the vaccines and medications were in a cool and controlled environment during delivery. "We recently discovered that this performance improvement effort to change packaging for safety may have exposed the vaccines and med- ications to cooler than recommended temperatures," Ventura County Health Care Agency told VC Star. The agency said it is uncertain of how much the temperature change affected the vaccines and medications, but suggests all patients to be revaccinated and receive treatment. The agency extended its clinic hours to accommodate the revaccinations. n Olympus settles federal scope investigation for $85M By Mackenzie Bean O lympus Medical Systems Corp. will pay $85 million to settle federal charges alleging it failed to file adverse event reports regarding bacterial infections linked to its duodenoscopes and continued to sell the devices despite infection risks. Olympus Medical Systems, a subsidiary of Olympus Corp., and a for- mer senior executive pleaded guilty to distributing misbranded medi- cal devices, according to the U.S. Justice Department. As part of the plea deal, Olympus acknowledged it did not submit ad- verse events reports to the FDA for infection outbreaks that occurred in Europe between 2012-14. The company didn't warn the U.S. about infection risks until 2015, when superbug outbreaks had already oc- curred in Seattle, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles, according to Reuters. "Olympus deeply regrets its failure to file and supplement the MDRs identified in the plea agreement and accepts full responsibility for these failures," Hiroyuki Sasa, president and representative director of Olympus Corp., said in a Dec. 10 statement regarding the settlement. Olympus will pay an $80 million fine and forfeit $5 million to settle the charges. The company said it is also working to improve regula- tory processes and that the "investigation did not identify any direct harm to patients as a result of the disclosure failures," according to Olympus' statement. n

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