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The "ICARE" values - integrity, compassion, accountability, respect, and excellence - emphasized at Methodist Hospital System in Houston have a great deal to do with the organization's second year in a row in the top 10 of Fortune magazine's list of 100 Best Companies to Work For, says Greg Page, MBA, MHA, director of patient access and scheduling services.
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Call centers will be the first line of defense for the hospitals they serve if a pandemic — such as an outbreak of avian flu — should hit the United States, say a variety of health care professionals working to prepare for such an eventuality.
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Two new auditing processes and a script for "introducing" discharge planners to their patients are the latest innovations at Stevens Hospital in Edmunds, WA, part of its response to the revised "Important Message from Medicare" (IM).
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At California Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles "we never want [staff] to say, 'We do not have any beds,'" says Elizabeth Oliver, director for access care for the facility, which is part of Catholic Healthcare West (CHW).
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A 2007 lawsuit involving an incident at a Louisiana hospital illustrates the lack of understanding among providers regarding the provisions and applications of the HIPAA privacy rule, notes Elizabeth H. Hogue, Esq., a Burtonsville, MD-based attorney specializing in health care issues.
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A recent security-related incident at a U.S. hospital is of "significant concern" and should serve as a wake-up call to health care leaders, suggests Stephen Frew, JD, a web site publisher (www.medlaw.com) and risk management specialist.
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A fee schedule change affecting payment for ground ambulance charges under Section 414 of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) of 2003 provides increased payments for urban and rural services, adds an increased payment for ambulance transports originating in certain low-density population areas, and provides a 25% bonus on the mileage rate for ground transports of 51 miles or greater.
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The 2008 Fortune magazine list of "100 Best Companies to Work For" includes 11 hospitals and health systems, including Methodist Hospital System in Houston, which placed 10th.
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Emergency department patients waited an average of 30 minutes to see a physician in 2004, eight minutes longer than in 1997, according to a study of U.S. ED visits published on-line recently by Health Affairs.
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has granted a request from the American Hospital Association (AHA) to allow critical access hospitals to submit and publicly report outpatient quality data along with other hospitals.
