Magazine & Journal Articles
American Hospital Association magazine and journal articles.
The future of health care is as clear and certain as the muddy windows you clean after a rainy day. We have certainly heard the doom and gloom, and yet we also hear the promise of improvement. In today’s health care environment, that means change. But, for you, the environmental services (EVS)…
A look at a couple of the most pressing problems confronting our profession in the immediate and the near future.
Part one of this two-part article provides an overview of Legionnaires’ disease, the source of the bacterium in hospital water systems and aerosol vectors of infection. Part two will focus on the important role that a multidiscipline team plays in managing the legionellosis risk.
A well-trained staff is the cornerstone of any Environmental Services Department. Well-developed and polished Shift Leads are even more important to the department’s growth and success. For that reason, Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare in Milwaukee, Wis., created a year-long Leadership Development…
EXPLORE spoke with Rock Jensen and Greg May, CHESP, about health care reform and its impact on the EVS professional, including expanded service levels, volumes, the impact on today's hospitals and how this will directly affect EVS departments.
Preventable healthcare-associated infections (pHAIs) are still a major challenge in this country’s healthcare facilities. An aggressive intervention initiative is needed to address this problem as rapidly and completely as possible. Further, there’s never been a stronger and more well-defined need…
Good isn’t good enough anymore. In today’s competitive healthcare environment, excellence will be the expectation not the exception. From meeting HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) standards for room cleanliness and quietness to lowering operating expenses as…
EXPLORE spoke with Candace Thompson, CHESP, and Lea Beach, CHESP, about infection control, their department’s working relationships with Infection Preventionists (IPs), the latest challenges, how they empower their staff, and best practices for hand-washing and PPE compliance.
To AHE members at the EXCHANGE 2012 conference, Laurie Leon, director of materials management at Boca Raton Regional Hospital, highlighted that 90 percent of hospitals could not readily pull together cost and weight data for their waste streams. This reality can lead to financial pressure.
The OSHA Hazard Communication (HazCom) Standard has been significantly revised for the first time since it came about in the 1980s. Those changes in the “Right-to-Know” Standard, as HazCom is commonly called, have brought in the use of the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) to identify and…