KHA is urging all hospital administrators to take steps to assure your policy on treatment and evidence collection in cases of sexual assault are in compliance with state law and regulations. There have been recent reports to KHA that some patients presenting to hospital emergency rooms following sexual assault are not being provided evidence collection services and in some cases are being turned away for treatment.

There are resources on the Sexual Assault Response page of KHA’s website (located under the Services category) providing guidance to hospitals on the requirements of hospital emergency personnel to treat victims of sexual assault and to collect evidence with consent from the patient. All acute care hospitals providing emergency services are required to provide these services regardless of the availability of a sexual assault nurse examiner...

The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) publishes an updated drug shortage list on its website. There is now a link from the Safety and Quality section of the KHA website, www.kyha.com, to this resource for your convenience.

ASHP and its partners work to keep the public informed of the most current drug shortages. Shortages can adversely affect drug therapy, compromise or delay medical procedures and result in medication errors.

KHA has partnered with the Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs and the Office of Inspector General to encourage hospitals to become more knowledgeable about caring for victims of sexual assault and to work toward becoming a designated SANE-Ready Hospital. State law requires all Kentucky hospitals to:

Treat victims of sexual assault who present to their emergency room regardless of the certifications and experience of staff in the emergency department; Perform a medical forensic exam on the individual if consent is given; and Contact the local Rape Crisis Center. The Kentucky General Assembly established the “SANE-Ready Hospital” program through legislation in the 2016 General Assembly. Hospitals demonstrating they have Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners available to treat patients presenting to the emergency room can apply for this designation. KHA encourages all Kentucky hospitals with emergency departments to work towards achieving this designation. For more information on becoming a SANE-Ready Hospital, review...

This week, KHA is updating its main website, www.kyha.com. This will include a complete upgrade with a number of new features for members. During the transition, the website will be down and inaccessible. KHA staff will work to make sure this causes as little inconvenience as possible; however, the outage could last 24-48 hours.

As soon as the change is complete, there will be information in KHA Health e-News about the new features and how to access your individual site account.

If you have any questions about the site, please contact Ginger Dreyer at KHA (gdreyer@kyha.com).