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As the quality and safety arm for CHA and the Regional Associations, the Hospital Quality Institute (HQI) is always working to find new ways to help hospitals not only improve the lives of the patients they touch, but also create a culture of patient safety within their organizations.
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Today will be the last day of this regular email update. After today, CHA will provide regular updates related to the COVID-19 pandemic through its twice-weekly newsletter, CHA News. Staff at member hospitals who don’t currently receive CHA News may subscribe on the CHA website.
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Location:
Riverside Convention Center, Upper Concourse, Exhibit Hall A3637 5th StreetRiverside, CA 92501
Download Agenda at a Glance
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Hospitals Must Post Crisis Care Guidelines on Website Effective Jan. 6, all California hospitals are required to publicly post their crisis care continuum guidelines, another facility’s guidelines, or the state’s guidelines on their website, per All Facilities Letter (AFL) 20-91. Additionally, hospitals must notify their local California Department of Public Health (CDPH) district office and their...
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In March, we requested responses from the questionnaire, “How is COVID-19 Impacting Your Volunteers?” and learned many hospitals suspended their programs, some modified them with limited volunteer activity, and few volunteer leaders were furloughed.
In July, we requested a status update with the questionnaire, “Assessing the Impact of COVID-19 in Hospital Volunteer Programs.” Responses indicated most hospitals were in the planning process of returning volunteers, some received additional tasks and responsibilities due to COVID-19 and gift shops were closed or open with limited operations.
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Given that CDPH is not planning to issue a statewide blanket waiver of the nurse-to-patient ratio law at this time, hospitals are reminded of the following exceptions related to this law:
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Has the state of California released any guidance for hospitals on crisis standards of care?
In June, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued its California SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic Crisis Care Guidelines: Concept of Operations/Health Care Facility Surge Operations and Crisis Care, providing a framework to help health care facilities plan for an overwhelming medical surge due to the pandemic. The guidelines include an overview of surge capacity and crisis care operational considerations, as well as a decision-making framework for allocating ventilators and pandemic patient care strategies for scarce resource situations.
Importantly, while the Guidelines provide information to support individual health care facilities or health system operations, CDPH makes clear that the Guidelines do not replace the judgment of operational management, medical directors, legal advisors, or clinical staff or consideration of other relevant variables and options. To assist hospitals as the winter surge continues to grow, CHA has prepared several resources that highlight the guidelines’ key concepts and planning considerations for allocating scarce medical resources during surge operations. These include:
CHA recommends that when hospitals implement the crisis care guidelines they notify the local CDPH district office as a way of communicating the change in operations at the hospital.
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CDPH Issues AFL on Crisis Standards of Care The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) has issued All Facilities Letter (AFL) 20-91, which addresses the need for all health facilities to have crisis care continuum guidelines and to implement those guidelines if they are experiencing surge as a result of the current increase in COVID-19 cases....
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Update on CDPH COVID-19-Related Waivers Hospitals report that the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) continues to process requests for additional staff and will maintain staffing waivers until those staff arrive. As a reminder, all existing approved COVID-19 staffing-related waivers ended at 11:59 p.m. on Feb. 8 (per All Facilities Letter (AFL) 20-26.6) unless CDPH explicitly...
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State Health Order on Hospital Surge Released
The State Health Order, released by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) Jan. 5 and amended Jan. 6, is in effect through at least Jan. 26 and unless rescinded, primarily does two things:
