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Are admitted patients being held for a long time in the emergency department while they wait for an inpatient bed to become available? Do patients in specialty care units stay longer than necessary because there is no general unit bed for them to be transferred to?
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In this first part of a two-part series on benchmarking, we tell about two hospitals that achieved dramatic reductions in length of stay (LOS). Next month, we discuss how to speed up admissions by addressing virtual capacity issues with the entire hospital.
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Descriptions of the following positons: Payer specialists, Placement specialist, Denials management specialist, Staff assistants and Department secretary.
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When it comes to improving quality, sometimes the simplest and least expensive measures work best, reports Earl Kurashige, RN, project manager for Qualis Health, a nonprofit health care quality improvement organization based in Seattle.
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In 1999, Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas had a denial rate of 1.12% of gross revenue at year end. The denial rate began to decline steadily following the implementation of a denials management team and process improvement teams, both of which include members of the case management staff. The process has saved millions of dollars. For fiscal year 2003, the denial rate has dropped to 0.2% of gross revenue.
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The quality professionals role continues to evolve, with many professionals stepping into leadership and business roles, according to the latest Hospital Peer Review salary survey.
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A high priority has been placed on improving incident reporting as the first step in reducing unintended patient injuries. The incident reporting system in many health care organizations is evolving into one that focuses on near misses, provides incentives for voluntary reporting, ensures confidentiality (not necessarily anonymity), and emphasizes data collection, analysis, and improvement.
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A recent four-day Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) survey at United Regional Health Care System in Wichita Falls, TX, was very patient-focused, with direct caregivers much more involved, reports Darlene Adams, RN, MSN, the organizations patient care safety/quality management officer.
