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Cigarettes and pregnancy are a risky combination, and there is an abundance of data to indicate that perinatal outcome is improved if patients can abstain from smoking.
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In the Issue: Ongoing safety review of tiotropium; raloxifene reduces the risk of endometrial cancer; one-day treatment with famciclovir may be as effective as 3-day treatment with valacyclovir; new Clinical Practice Guideline from the American College of Physicians regarding pharmacologic treatment for low bone density and osteoporosis; FDA Actions.
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July of this year represented the 5-year anniversary of the publication of Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG) protocol 178, a pivotal trial demonstrating the significant impact of 9 additional months of paclitaxel chemotherapy to women who had achieved a complete clinical response to primary therapy.
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Automobile and accidental injury regulations, the Medicare as Secondary Payer questionnaire, and workers' compensation guidelines are just a few of the many issues with which the patient access professional and case manager must be educated and competent.
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At DCH Health System, the clinical documentation improvement team takes a proactive approach to changes in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) documentation requirements.
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When patients of community-based physicians are ready for discharge from Chesapeake (VA) Regional Medical Center, they no longer have to wait for their physicians to come to the hospital and write discharge orders.
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Since Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis began a patient throughput initiative, the patient holding hours in the emergency department and post-anesthesia care unit average less than 30 hours per day despite the fact that 50,000 patients come through the emergency department each year and the hospital has more than 30,000 inpatient visits a year.
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As the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) rolls out the Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program nationwide, case managers are in a position to help their hospitals stay ahead of the curve by keeping patients out of the hospital if they don't need to be admitted and ensuring that the documentation in the medical record for inpatient or observation admission supports medical necessity.
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When Chesapeake General Hospital began exploring ways to improve patient throughput and further reduce its length of stay, Roxana Ballinger, RN, BBA, CCM, director of care management, conducted research to discover what other hospitals had done to improve patient throughput and determined that nurse practitioners could play an important role in moving patients through the continuum.
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At DCH Health System in Tuscaloosa, AL, clinical documentation improvement efforts go far beyond just making sure the documentation supports the most appropriate MS-DRG for the purpose of Medicare reimbursement.