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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has delayed the implementation of the ICD-10 procedure and diagnostic coding set, but that doesn't mean that hospitals can forget about preparing for the conversion to the new system, says Deborah Hale, CCS, CCDS, president and chief executive officer of Administrative Consultant Service, a healthcare consulting firm based in Shawnee, OK.
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Before North Broward Medical Center in Deerfield Beach, FL, re-engineered its discharge process two years ago, 29% of patients were being readmitted within 30 days. Now, the figure has dropped to 15%.
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Passport Health Plan's Mommy Steps program helps at-risk pregnant Medicaid recipients get the care and psychosocial help they need to overcome the obstacles to a healthy pregnancy.
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By meeting at-risk pregnant women face-to-face in their physician's office, a case manager from BlueCross BlueShield is able to successfully engage the Medicaid recipients in case management and work to meet their needs throughout the pregnancy.
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The old saying "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," couldn't be more appropriate than when it comes to preterm births.
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Emergency department administrators are well aware that crowding in the ED is associated with poorer patient outcomes, longer hospital stays, and decreased patient satisfaction.
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Select Health of South Carolina is collaborating with community partners to ensure that pregnant women in their First Choice health plan's Medicaid population have full-term, healthy babies.
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It must seem as though the number of important things to read and digest that come across a quality manager's desk is never-ending.
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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.
