The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations announced an extension to the deadline requiring hospitals and long-term care facilities to select a performance measurement system that complies with ORYX performance requirements. JCAHO moved the deadline from December 31, 1997 to March 2, 1998 at the request of several healthcare organizations that were not prepared with a system or a report of the clinical measures to be audited. The ORYX accreditation process requires hospitals and long-term care facilities to be enrolled in a performance measurement system by June 30, 1998, begin collecting data during the third quarter of 1998 and begin submitting data to JCAHO in the first quarter of 1999.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration awarded $5.2 million to 18 healthcare organizations throughout the country for rural telemedicine projects. Grantees are expected use the funds, ranging from $175,000 to $383,000, to evaluate the feasibility of various telemedicine applications. This is the second award from the Rural Telemedicine Grant program that began in 1994.
The American Nurses Association (ANA) Nursing Information and Data Set Evaluation Center announced it has published certification requirement standards for nursing documentation products. The products must comply with criteria for nomenclature, clinical content, clinical data repository features and general system characteristics. The ANA says the standards will help vendors meet nurses documentation needs and help nurses evaluate products available to them.
