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Perhaps the saddest thing about the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture: 2012 User Comparative Database Report, released in February by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is not that so many people believe the culture in their hospitals is an impediment to error reporting, but that so many people who work in the patient safety arena are not surprised at the high number of people responding that way.
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Under-triage, or assessing patients as being less ill than they actually are, can lead to treatment delays and adverse outcomes, including serious injury and even death. Despite such dire consequences, however, Lisa Wolf, PhD, RN, CEN, FAEN, a clinical assistant professor nursing at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA, believes that under-triage is occurring in ED environments across the country.
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An integrated approach to managing the care of Medicare Advantage members with special needs has paid off for Baltimore-based XLHealth, resulting in increased primary care interventions and reduced rates of hospitalization and emergency department visits.
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Researchers have found that patients who are diagnosed with a substance use disorder are about twice as likely to be readmitted to the hospital as patients without this diagnosis. These findings suggest that hospitals could intervene with substance use screening and programs designed to reduce subsequent hospital utilization.1
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When Cigna HealthCare of Arizona Medicare Advantage members are homebound, have complex care management issues, or are at risk for readmission to the hospital, the home-based care team from Cigna Medical Group, located in Phoenix, visits the patients in their homes, assesses their needs, and arranges for the services they need to stay healthy and safe in the home environment.
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A study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that there is no significant difference between safety-net and non-safety-net hospitals when it comes to the length of stay for emergency patients.
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As they go about their day-to-day activities, case managers should take steps to protect themselves from possible legal action if the patients whose care they manage experience an adverse outcome.
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New research suggests weight training for two years significantly improves the motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease compared to other forms of exercise such as stretching and balance exercises.
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Hard hit by one of the worst recessions in nearly a century, hundreds of thousands of Californians lost insurance coverage across the state as employers shed jobs and the health plans that came with those jobs, according to a report from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Center for Health Policy Research.
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When an interdisciplinary team including patient access, insurance verification, and radiology personnel was formed to reduce claims denials, "realizing where denials are coming from was definitely our first step," reports Brian A. Todd, CHAM, manager of patient access staff development and training at Lourdes Health System in Camden, NJ.
