ABSTRACT
This article presents a method that is helpful in achieving compliance with the JCAHO medical staff monitoring standards. Since the QA activity of the medical staff is of great importance to the institution, it is imperative that monitoring activities are clearly documented and easily evaluated. Through the use of a standardized departmental minutes format, each clinical department is prompted to address the monthly activity relating to each of the basic quality assurance functions. These minutes can be "scored" using an evaluation tool suitable for review by the Medical Executive Committee. This enables the committee to track the status of each department's use of the "Ten Step Process." This method has successfully met the challenge of a recent JCAHO accreditation visit. The use of the standardized departmental minutes format and the evaluation tool provide a method to successfully meet the JCAHO medical staff quality assurance standards.
Subject(s)
Forms and Records Control , Hospital Records/standards , Medical Staff, Hospital/organization & administration , Quality Assurance, Health Care/organization & administration , Boston , Hospital Bed Capacity, 300 to 499 , Interdepartmental Relations , Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare OrganizationsABSTRACT
Some of the physiological and biochemical characteristics of a type F strain recently isolated from the United States were studied and compared with those of the prototype Langeland type F strain. The recent isolates were nonproteolytic, fermented sucrose and ribose, produced spores of low thermal resistance, produced a protoxin activated by trypsin, and grew and produced toxin at 38 F (3.3 C) from a spore inoculum. The prototype Langeland strain was proteolytic, did not ferment sucrose or ribose, and produced spores of relatively high thermal resistance, and the toxin of 3-day-old cultures was not activated by trypsin. Approximately two to three times the minimal lethal dose (MLD) of type F toxin from either Langeland or nonproteolytic strains was cross-neutralized by 1,000 anti-MLD of type E antitoxin. Antitoxin serums prepared by immunizing rabbits with the toxoid of the nonproteolytic type F isolate neutralized the toxin of the Langeland strain, but did not show cross-neutralization with the toxins of other types of Clostridium botulinum.
