Question: When does a decorative water wall, installed in a hospital lobby to provide a calming ambience, become a health risk? Answer: When the water wall dispenses a bacteria-laden mist that results in an outbreak of Legionnaires disease. Eight people who walked by just such a water wall in a Wisconsin hospital lobby in 2010
This winter residents of El Paso, Texas experienced unusually cold weather. Temperatures reached six degrees Fahrenheit in early February, the lowest recorded for the city in 120 years. In short order, El Paso became a city of frozen and burst water pipes where businesses and daily activities were seriously disrupted. Faced with a significant water
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 2 million patients acquire a hospital-related infection every year and 90,000 die from that infection. The Joint Commission’s newly created Center for Transforming Healthcare is using robust process improvement methods to find the root causes of, and solutions for, dangerous and potentially deadly breakdowns