March 2024 Newsletter

In the News This Month

Greetings Everyone,

This month’s newsletter articles spotlight two hot topics in healthcare today, Onboarding of new staff and Workplace Violence.

With healthcare facilities consistently hiring new staff, providing a thorough orientation/onboarding program is extremely important. Onboarding information helps new staff acclimate to the healthcare environment and team, learn acceptable ways to complete tasks, and utilize key organizational processes to deliver high-quality, safe care. Our feature article, “Orientation: Success for New Employees”, authored by Denise Smith, Senior Consultant outlines key components for the three main types of orientation, as well as essential steps to consider when designing your programs.

Workplace violence is an important part of education and training for all healthcare staff. The data for workplace violence in healthcare shows some disturbing trends. "Workplace Violence - What's Happening in 2024?", also authored by Denise Smith outlines new and revised workplace prevention standards that will be implemented by The Joint Commission for all Behavioral Health Care and Human Services organizations.

Thank you for taking the time to read our articles. We hope this information has been helpful in preparing you and your organization for the new year. If you have any suggestions for future topics or require our services, please reach out to us at info@courtemanche-assocs.com. Our team is always available and eager to assist you in any way we can.

Healthcare worker being onboarded by Hospital Human Resource Department

Mar 1 2024

Orientation – Success for New Employees
Orientation, (sometimes called induction or "onboarding") introduces new, inexperienced, and transferred workers to the organization, their supervisors, co-workers, work areas, and job duties, especially to quality and safety. Orientation is extremely important. The information received is designed to help new staff acclimate to the healthcare team, learn acceptable tasks, ...
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About the Authors

Denise Smith, RN, BS, MS, CLNC, HACP-CMS

Denise Smith is a Senior Consultant with Courtemanche & Associates. In this role she is responsible for assessing healthcare organizational readiness for licensing, certification, accreditation, and regulatory compliance. She has extensive knowledge in the requirements of The Joint Commission, DNV, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services including knowledge in their survey process, auditing approach and survey outcome determination. She also has knowledge and experience in AAAHC and other regulatory and accreditation organizations. She assists organizations with survey preparation, educational needs, post survey activities, patient safety strategies and quality improvement initiatives. Denise has more than 40 years of experience and expertise in Infection Prevention, Sterile Processing, Legal Nurse Consulting, Quality and Resource Management, Clinical Education, in acute inpatient and outpatient care settings.

Denise Smith
patient yelling at psychiatrist during appointment.

Mar 1 2024

Workplace Violence – What’s New in Behavioral Health for 2024?
Healthcare team members and their patients are exposed daily to the dangers of workplace violence that has resulted in real casualties. Not only has this threat caused physical injury and sometimes death but has also resulted in collateral damage to the organization's culture of safety. What Does the Data ...
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About the Authors

Denise Smith, RN, BS, MS, CLNC, HACP-CMS

Denise Smith is a Senior Consultant with Courtemanche & Associates. In this role she is responsible for assessing healthcare organizational readiness for licensing, certification, accreditation, and regulatory compliance. She has extensive knowledge in the requirements of The Joint Commission, DNV, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services including knowledge in their survey process, auditing approach and survey outcome determination. She also has knowledge and experience in AAAHC and other regulatory and accreditation organizations. She assists organizations with survey preparation, educational needs, post survey activities, patient safety strategies and quality improvement initiatives. Denise has more than 40 years of experience and expertise in Infection Prevention, Sterile Processing, Legal Nurse Consulting, Quality and Resource Management, Clinical Education, in acute inpatient and outpatient care settings.

Denise Smith

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The Joint Commission® is a registered trademark of Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Courtemanche & Associates has no affiliation with this entity.

Courtemanche & Associates | (704)-573-4535 | Email: info@courtemanche-assocs.com

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