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A case manager in a rural setting often is responsible for what it takes an entire case management department to do in a big city hospital.
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Case managers in rural hospitals have to think outside the box and find creative solutions to problems that their big city counterparts rarely face.
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The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has approved a new infection control standard that requires accredited organizations to offer influenza vaccinations to staff, which includes volunteers, and licensed independent practitioners with close patient contact.
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Voluntary annual influenza immunization programs that use educational efforts and other incentives to vaccinate health care workers have been an abject failure, a leading proponent of mandatory flu shots said recently in Tampa at the annual conference of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).
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In the first year after reorganizing the case management department, Lake Granbury (TX) Medical Center, a 59-bed facility, substantially increased reimbursement by improving documentation and saved $35,000 by putting case managers in charge of getting Medicaid forms signed, rather than relying on an outside vendor.
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has proposed sweeping changes to the payment structure for hospitals, including the first significant revision of the Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) since it was implemented in 1983.
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The creation of an "Access Center" to handle interhospital transfer coordination and unscheduled admissions at Saint Francis Hospital in Tulsa, OK, has vastly improved the movement of patients into beds.
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Three years ago, the average length of stay (LOS) for admitted ED patients was about 7.5 hours at the 17th Street campus of New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, NC. Today, it is down to just more than five hours.
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A Six Sigma initiative to improve care for ventilator patients has decreased ventilators days by more than 50% at St. Anthony's Hospital in St. Petersburg, FL.
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Hospital discharge planners must use their ingenuity to find a discharge destination for undocumented workers who need post-acute care.