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ED managers are not often thought of as inventors, but David Soria, MD, chief of emergency medicine at Wellington (FL) Regional Medical Center, has created a device that has helped his department knock an average of 2-3 minutes off its triage time, which was already an impressive 10-15 minutes.
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With the 2009 National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) just announced, it's an ideal time to perform a self-assessment for all of the existing goals, including the requirements for improving recognition and response to changes in a patient's condition and improving safety of anticoagulation medications, which are being phased in right now, says Paula Swain, MSN, CPHQ, FNAHQ, director of clinical and regulatory review at Presbyterian Healthcare in Charlotte, NC.
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Quality managers agree that establishing and maintaining a culture of quality and safety is one of the toughest challenges they face. One facility that appears to have successfully met that challenge is Munson Medical Center in Traverse City, MI, which recently received the 2008 AHA-McKesson Quest for Quality Prize.
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Major findings of a recent report by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured include the following:
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As expected, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in August announced a proposed regulation that would replace the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) code sets now used to report health care diagnoses and procedures with greatly expanded ICD-10 code sets. If adopted, the new regulation would take effect in October 2011.
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When Congress passed the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 amending Title XVIII of the Social Security Act, included in the more than 30 provisions of the act are several that impact discharge and transfer from an acute-care setting.
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A California hospital that settled a lawsuit claiming that it dumped an indigent, paraplegic patient in downtown Los Angeles' Skid Row in 2006 will be monitored by a former U.S. attorney for up to five years to ensure the hospital won't engage in patient dumping again.
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Every year, more than 115 million patients enter hospital emergency rooms (ER) in the United States. And many of them – as many as 75% leave the ER not really clear about what happened and what they should do next, a University of Michigan study reveals.
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No matter how positive their experiences during the discharge process, patients can feel that once they exit the hospital doors, they're in "no man's land" if issues arise later. But a process tested at Somerville (MA) Hospital showed success at bridging the gap between hospital and primary care.
