The new medical staff and upcoming leadership standards from The Joint Commission and the recent Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ruling stopping reimbursement for certain preventable conditions have something in common: All are strong incentives to involve physicians in quality initiatives.
The Joint Commission's new 2007 medical staff standards require you to collect performance data for all practitioners. For most practitioners, this will be a simple and straightforward matter, but for others, it could prove to be a daunting challenge.
The Joint Commission's 2007 report "Improving America's Hospitals: A Report on Quality and Safety" had some good news hospitals are achieving 90% or better on about half the quality measures tracked since 2002.
When it comes to implementation of rapid response teams, organizations fall into three distinct groups, says Kathy Duncan, RN, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's faculty expert for the rapid response intervention.
Effective patient discharge is a priority area for all hospitals. Yet many patients who returned home after their hospital stay believe their discharge was inadequate in terms of the information they received and the information sought about their need for assistance at home.
Hospital-based quality professionals have a golden opportunity to step into new leadership roles, due in large part to the growing impact of pay for performance.
