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The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has created a website with a wealth of tools to help hospitals set up the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP). (www.ahrq.gov/cusptoolkit) Frontline users that have implemented CUSP say they not only reduced infections, but dramatically transformed their overall patient safety culture.
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Operating a small hospital doesn' t mean you can' t think big. Ellenville Regional Hospital (ERH), a 25-bed rural hospital in Wawarsing, NY, is enjoying success with a medication reconciliation and patient safety project that would be the envy of any large teaching institution by reducing medication-related events to a very low 0.1 occurrences per 1,000 doses dispensed.
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By revamping the discharge process and working with post-acute providers, UConn Health Center/John Dempsey Hospital, Farmington, CT, reduced 30-day heart failure readmissions from 25.1% in August 2010 to 17% in March 2012.
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Helping your hospital optimize reimbursement and avoid losing money in today's healthcare audit environment starts with ensuring that the patient is in the right level of care from the beginning and this means making sure that observation services are ordered only when they are appropriate.
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If patients are admitted to the hospital when outpatient services were appropriate, the level of care can be changed, but there's a lot of paperwork involved to correct the error.
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UCLA Health System in Los Angeles reduced length of stay and improved patient throughput by using a "strategic triad" of initiatives that includes interdisciplinary rounds, clinical high-risk meetings, and use of escalation to overcome barriers to discharge.
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An incorrect admission status on a patient can cause a delay in obtaining a required authorization, warns Marsha Kedigh, RN, BS, MSM, director of admitting, ED registration, discharge station, and insurance management at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, TN.
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Giving incentives to individual registrars who met collection goals at Martin Health System in Stuart, FL, seemed like a good idea at first, but it didn't work out too well, according to Carol Plato Nicosia, CHFP, CPAM, MBA, administrative director of corporate business services.
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Loretta Buisson, director of patient access satellite facilities at Ochsner Health System in New Orleans, LA, looks for applicants who have great customer service skills, are highly motivated and dependable, and adapt well to change.
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At Hendrick Medical Center in Abilene, TX, offering incentives "has impacted our collections tremendously," reports Berdia Thompson, admissions supervisor.