Resource Bank
Resource Bank
Missed that conference? Check this out!
CancerEducation.com provides cancer education materials for health care professionals and consumers at www.CancerEducation.com. The site also now provides entire conferences on-line in full video format.
Two recent conferences available on-line at CancerEducation.com include:
• The First International Kidney Cancer Symposium, which included sessions on surgery for renal cell carcinoma, biology of renal cell carcinoma, anti-tumor immune response in renal cell carcinoma, and therapeutic approaches to advanced renal cell carcinoma.
• The Brain Tumor Foundation's Fourth National Symposium, which included sessions on brain tumor treatment in the next millennium, meningiomas, pediatric malignant tumors, seizure management, and consultation and collaboration with schools.
Disability guidelines now include costs
The Corpus Christi, TX-based Work Loss Institute recently released its Official Disability Guidelines 2000 and, for the first time, this fifth anniversary edition of the guidelines includes benchmark workers' compensation indemnity costs, direct plus indirect, for every workplace occurrence. The costs provide data to quantify potential savings from efforts such as case management and return-to-work programs.
The guidelines provide return-to-work norms for each illness or injury listed. The database was created by linking several federal government databases, including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Hospital Discharge Survey with the worldwide ICD-9 coding system; it includes more than 3 million cases. The guidelines include "best practices" developed by an editorial advisory board consisting of medical directors from some of the nation's largest employers. The best practice guidelines are updated annually to reflect the newest therapies and technologies.
The new edition also includes these features:
• physical therapy guidelines, indicating recommended frequencies and durations;
• key word index, making it easy to find any disease, procedure, injury, or condition.
The guidelines cost $165 for the 1,200-page soft-cover book. They also are available on CD-ROM for $195 or in an abbreviated text titled Official Disability Guidelines — Top 200 Conditions for $79.
Orders should be sent to Work-Loss Data Institute, 500 N. Shoreline Blvd., Suite 1101-N, Corpus Christi, TX 78471. Telephone orders: (800) 488-5548.
Can you compete with your peers in case management?
It's not too late to enter the fourth annual Best Disease Management/Service Practices Awards program, sponsored annually by Parke-Davis Healthcare Management in Parsippany, NJ.
The best practices program was initiated to encourage health care organizations to improve the efficiency and quality of their provider performance. Eligible participants include medical directors, directors of case management, directors of customer service, pharmacy directors, and directors of quality assurance, as well as other members of the health care team. To stimulate ideas, a contest entry kit has been produced that contains helpful hints from previous award recipients. Participants also are directed to a Web site, www.pdbestpractices.com, that lists ideas from the last two contests.
The program offers awards for outstanding ideas, services, or practices, in each of seven categories: depression, diabetes, epilepsy, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, infectious disease, and women's health.
All entries will be published in a Y2000 Compendium of Best Disease Management and Best Service Practices. The book will be distributed to managed care organizations throughout the country to give health care professionals the opportunity to adapt proven successes to their patient care and service.
A $350 award will be given to five winning entries in each category. In addition, if one or more of a participant's entries are published in the compendium, the participant will receive a $50 honorarium. Entrants can be winners in more than one category and every applicant will receive a commemorative wall plaque.
Entries are accepted by mail or e-mail. An entry form is available from Parke-Davis Best Disease Management Service Practices Awards, c/o Louis Scott Associates, 201 W. Passaic St., Suite 401, Rochelle Park, NJ 07662. The form must be included with each submission. All entries must be submitted by March 31.
New site for children with bipolar disorder
The Child & Adolescent Bipolar Foundation (CABF), a Web-based organization incorporated in California, recently launched an interactive Web site with an extensive library, message boards, chat rooms, an ask-the-expert feature, and a drug database for children with bipolar disorder.
CABF was established by a steering com mittee representing several hundred families throughout the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, who met on the Internet. CABF's professional advisory board includes Kay Redfield Jamison, PhD, a professor of psych iatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore, and Joseph Beiderman, MD, an expert on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder from Harvard School of Medicine in Cambridge, MA.
Information regarding early-onset bipolar disorders can be found on CABF's Web site at www.bpkids.org.
Calender
• March 29-31. Celebrating a Decade of Promoting Quality in Health Care: A Quality Summit, the national conference sponsored by the American Accreditation Healthcare Commis sion/URAC in Washington, DC. Renaissance Hotel, Washington, DC. Cost is $695 for URAC-accredited organizations and $750 for non-accredited organizations. Sessions include:
— Case studies: How one New England community prepared for HIPAA compliance/partnering to develop a health management strategy.
— Innovations in technology for disease management programs.
— A legal overview of case management and utilization management.
Contact URAC, 1275 K St. N.W., Suite 1100, Washington, DC 20005. Phone: (202) 216-9010. Fax: (202) 216-9006. Web site: www.urac.org.
• April 11-12. Customer Service for the Health care Industry: The Challenge of Building Patient Loyalty in the New Era of Consumerism. Renais sance Parc Five Hotel in San Francisco. Sponsored by HealthCare America, a division of Saddle Island Institute in Boston. Cost $875 per person. Pre-conference workshops also are available. Sessions include:
• Beyond patient care: Thriving in competitive times.
• Customer loyalty: How to earn it; how to keep it.
• Identifying customer dissatisfiers and countering them: Removing the ceiling from performance improvement.
Contact Healthcare America, 167 Milk St., No. 445, Boston, MA 02109. Phone: (617) 742-1740. Fax: (617) 742-1783. E-mail: sreynolds@ hcamerica.org.
Subscribe Now for Access
You have reached your article limit for the month. We hope you found our articles both enjoyable and insightful. For information on new subscriptions, product trials, alternative billing arrangements or group and site discounts please call 800-688-2421. We look forward to having you as a long-term member of the Relias Media community.