Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

22 PATIENT SAFETY & OUTCOMES Nurses to Joint Commission: Require safe staffing levels for accreditation By Mackenzie Bean N urses across the country are calling on e Joint Commission to require "safe staffing ratios" as a condition of accreditation for healthcare facilities, the Chicago Tribune reported March 15. e nurses, working with an advocacy group called Impact in Health- care, are also urging the accrediting body to create a clinician-led taskforce to determine appropriate staffing levels for various health- care settings, annually report hospitals' compliance with staffing ratios and conduct peer-reviewed research on the topic. A petition on change.org outlining these asks had more than 544,000 signatures as of March 17, representing the largest healthcare petition on the website this year, according to Michael Jones, a managing director at the company. e nurses' campaign also included a March 15 rally at e Joint Commission's headquarters in Oakbrook Ter- race, Ill., local TV commercials and a mobile billboard traveling to hospitals in the Chicago area. Jonathan Perlin, MD, PhD, president and CEO of e Joint Commis- sion, said the pandemic has underscored the importance of increas- ing the healthcare workforce and prioritizing workers' health and well-being. "Staffing is a complex issue that is larger than, and cannot be resolved by, e Joint Commission alone," he said in a statement to Becker's. "We look forward to working with other authorities on this issue. e context of [the March 15] events is not one that is conducive to the meaningful dialogue required. Unfortunately, there is no one- size-fits-all or immediate solution. Addressing the root causes of the staffing shortage is the only way to create long-term and sustainable improvement." n Healthgrades recognizes 448 hospitals for patient safety By Mackenzie Bean H ealthgrades has identified 448 hospitals as the recipients of its 2022 Patient Safety Excel- lence Award, the organization said March 15. To determine the recipients, Healthgrades analyzed 2018-20 Medicare data on 14 patient safety indica- tors defined by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Through its analysis, Healthgrades identified 170,231 potentially preventable safety events among Medicare patients in U.S. hospitals. In addi- tion, four safety indicators accounted for 74 percent of all safety events: • In-hospital fall resulting in hip fracture — 22.2 percent • Collapsed lung resulting from a procedure or surgery — 21.1 percent • Pressure sores or bed sores — 15.3 percent • Catheter-related bloodstream infections — 15 percent If all U.S. hospitals performed similarly to award winners, an average of 100,189 safety events could have been avoided, Healthgrades found. n Deaths for non-COVID-19 diagnoses up from pre- pandemic, Medicare study finds By Gabrielle Masson C ompared to pre-pandemic, mortality rates after hospitaliza- tion for non-COVID-19 illnesses were substantially higher among more than 8 million Medicare patients in 2020-21, according to a study published March 9 in JAMA Network Open. Researchers examined all Medicare claims from January 2019 through September 2021. This consisted of more than 8 million individuals with non-COVID-19 medical admissions with fee-for- service Medicare insurance at 4,626 U.S. hospitals. Five findings: 1. Admissions for non-COVID-19 diagnoses fell sharply in March and April 2020 and remained lower through September 2021. 2. Mortality rates after hospitalization for non-COVID-19 illnesses were substantially higher, particularly for Black individuals, Hispanic individuals and those with low socioeconomic status. 3. The increases in mortality were greater at lower-quality hospitals and hospitals with high COVID-19 caseloads. 4. Mortality for non-COVID-19 patients in the 30 days after admission increased from 9.43 percent in 2019 to 11.48 percent from April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021. 5. The prolonged increases in mortality rates after hospitalization for non-COVID-19 illnesses suggest a need for improved access to hos- pital care for non-COVID-19 patients, the researchers concluded. n

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