Following up on yesterday's announcement of their searchable training database, AHRQ has today released a new toolkit designed to reduce the falls risk in hospitals.

THe toolkit addresses six areas including:

1. hospital readiness
2. falls program management
3. falls prevention practices
4. implementation of falls prevention
5. measurement of falls prevention program improvements
6. sustainability of the falls prevention program

The toolkit can be found online.

Following recent high-profile shootings in offices, schools, theatres - and healthcare facilities - the Department of Homeland Security has released updated tools to train all personnel on responding to an active shooter threat.

The tools include webinars, a workshop, training course, video and research materials and are designed for personnel who may directly be in the path of an attacker - not just trained law enforcement.

The site can be found at http://www.dhs.gov/activeshooter

Note that resources on this site are likely to change as new strategies and responses are considered following the Newtown tragedy.

On Feb. 7 the Federal Register will carry a proposed rule for regulatory streamlining aiming to "reform Medicare regulations that CMS has identified as unnecessary, obsolete, or excessively burdensome on health care providers and suppliers, as well as certain regulations under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA)."

The comment period for the rule ends 60 days after publication.

The full text of the rule is available online, document CMS-3267-P.

A new searchable catalog of more than 300 training resources in patient safety has been put online by AHRQ.

Users can search by characteristics of each program including area and educational objectives.

The catalog is available at PSNet: http://psnet.ahrq.gov/pset/index.aspx