Articles Tagged With:
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Standardized Process for SNF Transitions Helps Prevent Readmissions
Using Lean methodology, Monument Health in Rapid City, SD, created a care transition process that reduces excess hospital days, prevents readmissions, and shortens the time it takes from discharge order to the patient leaving the hospital.
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Hospital Cuts Readmissions in Half with Process Improvement Strategy
Employees at HonorHealth Network in Phoenix work toward reducing readmissions. This is why the health system created a process improvement program that addresses the challenges of frequent users. In 2022, the program reduced readmissions among patients with complex care plans by 51%.
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Health Systems Improve Post-Acute Transitions
Transitioning patients from the hospital to skilled nursing facilities has become more difficult for case managers since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Case management leaders from several different hospitals have developed solutions.
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Neurologists Try to Predict Cognitive Impairment Earlier
Researchers used easy memory tests among healthy participants to determine who might be more likely to need closer monitoring.
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Unified Defense Not Always Possible in Malpractice Claim
Defense counsel must be aware of competing interests in any case. Attorneys should engage in frank discussions with the hospital and any employed staff who are named defendants. There must be a cohesive strategy. Individual staff members named in lawsuits should not be speculating on whether a staffing shortage existed, or whether a staffing shortage caused or contributed to a patient’s alleged injury.
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Emergency Physician’s Testimony Could Legally Expose Hospital
Airing grievances against the department, hospital, or health system will not serve the defendant in the long term. If a patient experienced a delayed diagnosis because of long waits, some providers might editorialize in the chart about why the delays happened or describe their personal efforts to bring the boarding crisis to the attention of leaders. A “just the facts” approach is better.
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Emergency Medicine Physician Groups Pledge to Tackle Workforce Challenges
Many experts note the burdens placed on frontline providers during the COVID-19 pandemic have taken a toll, and the apparent fall-off in demand for emergency medicine residency positions is not necessarily surprising. Nonetheless, there is concern suggesting solutions are needed to address multiple workforce challenges.
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Homeless Pediatric Patients Use EDs Frequently
Homeless children frequently use EDs, defined as four or more visits in a calendar year, compared to housed children. These patients require hospitalization more often than housed children when they visited the ED, including to ICUs. This underscore the critical influence of housing as a social determinant of health.
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Remote Facilities Can Avoid Unnecessary Pediatric Transfers by Leveraging Telemedicine
When critically ill children present to EDs in rural or community hospitals that lack access to specialty pediatric care, the solution often is to transfer them to a regional pediatric facility, which could be hours away from a patient’s home. This creates travel burdens and added expense for families and payors. But new research suggests that at least some of these interfacility transfers can be safely avoided by incorporating telemedicine consultations with pediatric specialists.
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Med/Mal Claims Focus on Decision Aid Findings from ECGs, Radiology Tests
If the radiologist does not address computer findings directly, the ED clinician is left to make assumptions about what the radiologist has found significant or insignificant. If radiologists are not routinely addressing computer findings, emergency providers will spend resources attempting to sift through reports and images, trying to rule in or out what the computer has found. Radiologists should acknowledge computer findings, and comment on why or why not the finding is accurate and significant to the patient’s care.