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The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), signed into law by President Obama in January 2011, has been called “historic” because it puts the focus of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on prevention—working to ensure that unsafe foods are not distributed in the first place.
FDA commissioner…
(IHI: Cambridge, MA) -- Now that the harm, cost, and prevalence of medical errors and defects in health care are getting the attention they deserve, improving patient safety and reliability has become a top priority in health care. And with the recent changes in reimbursement, maintaining a…
(Compliance2go: Houston) -- More organizations are striving to “go green” and develop sustainable strategies, many of which involve using computer- and cloud-based technologies. When it comes to electronic signatures and electronic records, the Code of Federal Regulations Title 21 of the Food and…
(ASQ: Milwaukee) -- The American Society for Quality (ASQ) invites you to help demonstrate the impact quality can have on
health care. Share your best practices, successes, and proven techniques
with an audience representing diverse backgrounds, countries, and
industries at the Quality…
(Pinpoint Laser Systems: Peabody, MA) -- Pinpoint Laser Systems has introduced the Proline Alignment Kit, a visual laser system for checking and measuring straightness, flatness, squareness, parallelism, leveling, and many other tasks. This kit combines the features of a transit, an infinitely…
(Visual Workplace: Byron Center, MI) -- Visual Workplace Inc. has made available a new training DVD, Lean Healthcare. Using fun, engaging examples in actual health care environments, this 40-minute training video highlights the eight wastes found in most health care processes and systems, and…
(FDA: Silver Spring, MD) -- The FDA has announced that it will open a public docket to begin receiving public comments on the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) report on the 510(k) program, the most common pathway to market for lower-risk medical devices.
The FDA commissioned the report in…
(FDA: Silver Spring, MD) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued draft guidance that clarifies when changes or modifications to a previously cleared 510(k) device require a new premarket submission.
The 510(k) process is the most common review path to market for lower-risk…
(FDA: Silver Spring, MD) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and federal partners has released the Food Related Emergency Exercise Boxed (FREE-B) set, a web-based collection of scenarios that will help government regulators, public health organizations, and the food industry test…
(Productivity Press: Boca Raton, FL) -- Already proven to increase efficiencies in the manufacturing sector, standard work has become a key element in reducing process waste, ensuring patient safety, and improving health care services. As part of the Taylor and Francis Lean Tools for…
(TeleTracking Technologies: Pittsburgh) -- Renowned quality expert A. Blanton Godfrey, Ph.D., board chairman of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and one of the creators of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, will be the featured speaker when TeleTracking Technologies…
(Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Princeton, NJ) -- The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has launched the nation’s most comprehensive online directory for patients to find reliable information on the quality of health care provided by physicians and hospitals in their communities. From Maine to…
(Geomagic: Leuven, Belgium) -- Geomagic and Nikon Metrology recently announced a cooperative agreement that enables Nikon Metrology to fully integrate and offer its entire range of handheld 3-D laser scanners with Geomagic Studio, Geomagic Qualify, and Geomagic Wrap software.
This partnership…
Twitter allows millions of social media fans to comment in 140 characters or less on just about anything: an actor’s outlandish behavior, an earthquake’s tragic toll or the great taste of a grilled cheese sandwich.
But by sifting through this busy flood of banter, is it possible to also track…
(Medline Industries: Mundelein, IL) -- Dr. Carolyn Clancy, director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ); Dr. Mark Chassin, president of the Joint Commission; and Aron Ralston, the focus of the academy award-nominated movie 127 Hours, are among the keynote speakers at…
(FDAnews: Falls Church, VA) -- Despite the FDA’s ongoing work with international regulators to improve supplier quality issues, a top FDA official has stated that another public health crisis like Heparin, which occurred in 2010 when Baxter Healthcare distributed misbranded and contaminated doses…
(3M Infection Prevention: St. Paul, MN) -- 3M Infection Prevention and RL Solutions announced a joint feasibility program to provide health care-facilities data on the rate of infection in real time, along with the costs associated with those infections. This collaborative effort brings together RL…
(FDA: Washington) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unveiled a new strategy to meet the challenges posed by rapidly rising imports of FDA-regulated products and a complex global supply chain in a report called the “Pathway to Global Product Safety and Quality.”
“Global production…
(AMN Healthcare, San Diego) -- Health care facility administrators and physicians report that the most serious obstacle they face in forming Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) is physician alignment, according to a new survey.
The survey, conducted by AMN Healthcare, the largest health care…
The free, on-demand presentation, “An Introduction to the Model for Improvement,” from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is a simple yet powerful approach to achieving rapid and significant improvements in health care delivery and outcomes. It has been used successfully by hundreds of…
(AHRQ: Rockville, MD) -- States are seeing improvements in health care quality, but disparities for their minority and low-income residents persist, according to 2010 State Snapshots, a web-based resource recently released by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
New Hampshire,…
(Thomson Reuters: Ann Arbor, MI) -- Thomson Reuters has released its third annual study identifying the 10 top U.S. health systems based on quality of care, efficiency, and patient satisfaction.
The top 10 are:
• Advocate Health Care*—Oak Brook, Illinois
• Cape Cod Healthcare—Hyannis,…
(IHI: Cambridge, MA) -- More than a decade of eye-opening mortality and morbidity studies have steadily increased awareness of the medical errors and defects in care that are heavily embedded in health care delivery. Work in this area, while robust, is far from complete and must be put on the front…
(FDAnews: Falls Church, VA) -- Register today for the Eighth Annual Medical Device Quality Congress, scheduled for June 8–9, 2011, in Bethesda, Maryland. This year the conference will feature more than 15 in-depth sessions headed up by leading quality experts, including sessions led by 10 officials…
The Beryl Institute released a report highlighting results from its recent patient-experience benchmarking study, conducted in collaboration with Catalyst Healthcare Research, an independent marketing research firm. The report, which offers analysis and perspective on the study, can be…