CMS recently issued a final rule cementing hospital Conditions of Participation (CoP) requirements for facilities that transfuse blood and blood components, but the new requirements should be business as usual for hospitals, says Mark S. Lifshitz, MD, clinical professor and director of clinical laboratories at New York University Medical Center in New York City.

In the September LCI, we discussed The Joint Commission’s (formerly JCAHO) new leadership standards addressing disruptive behaviors, which take effect January 1, 2009, and come under two elements of performance:

• The hospital or organization has a code of conduct that defines acceptable, disruptive, and inappropriate behaviors
• Leaders create and implement a process for managing disruptive and inappropriate behaviors