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A Six Sigma project at Sewickley (PA) Valley Hospital has achieved dramatic results including 100% compliance in one process in just three short months.
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Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, FL, winner of this years Malcolm Baldrige award for quality, has saved $2.56 million in two years as a result of its inpatient management program. The program, developed and operated by Cogent Healthcare Inc., an Irvine, CA-based inpatient management company, also was successful in improving the quality of patient care and in meeting the hospitals standards of patient satisfaction.
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The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in Rockville, MD, has unveiled a clinical decision-support tool for personal digital assistants (PDAs) that is designed to help clinicians deliver evidence-based medicine at the point of care. AHRQs new Pneumonia Severity Index Calculator is an interactive application for Palm Pilots and other PDAs to help physicians decide whether to hospitalize patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). This is the first of what AHRQ anticipates will be several such clinical decision support tools for PDAs.
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While The Leapfrog Groups ambitious campaign to improve patient safety in hospitals has sparked national awareness, few hospitals are close to meeting the groups standards for computerized prescriptions, specially trained intensive care unit (ICU) physicians, and volume thresholds for certain high-risk procedures, according to a study released by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC).
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Kiefer D. Goldenseal and the common cold: Is there any evidence? Altern Med Alert 2004;7(5):55-58.
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Greenfield RH. Acupuncture for chronic headache. Altern Med Alert 2004;7(5):58-59.
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Soy as part of a healthy diet. Altern Med Alert 2004;7(Suppl 5):S1-S4.
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Before Virtua Health instituted a Six Sigma project to improve its congestive heart failure program, the hospital systems average length of stay (LOS) was 6.5 days, compared with the Medicare benchmark of 4.2 days. After a pilot project at one of the Marlton, NJ-based nonprofit health care providers four hospitals, the LOS dropped to four days with a savings of $116,000 per year in staff and room costs.
