-
CMS is proposing a dramatic modification in how hospital outpatient and clinic visits will be billed and paid.
-
In an effort to create more capacity while also improving the patient experience, the University of Virginia Medical Center (UVAMC) in Charlottesville, VA, has taken steps to better leverage case managers in the ED. Under the new approach, case managers work alongside clinicians on the floor. They step in when added resources are needed or services need to be arranged before discharge.
-
-
In a pilot study, researchers at the University of Cincinnati have found that when a peer referral program is combined with an ED-based HIV screening program, more cases of undiagnosed HIV can be detected, providing a preventive health benefit to the community. However, more studies are needed to determine how to best capitalize on the yield of ED-based screening programs, and to get better estimates on the potential benefits of combining social networking programs with screening programs.
-
-
Researchers say that most ED personnel will experience some form of physical or verbal violence at some point in their careers. However, when such incidents are regularly reported, the patients involved can be flagged in a hospital's computer system, making future events involving the same patients much less likely. Further, when ED personnel are alert to the clues that a patient or family member is becoming agitated, early intervention can usually prevent the situation from escalating to violence.
-
Many providers and health systems are unaware of the opportunity to leverage payment reform to develop or align community-based resources in order to provide better care and more support to patients post-discharge under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), according to James Corbett, JD, MDiv, a fellow at Harvard Medical Schools Division of Medical Ethics and Vice President of Community Health and Ethics at Steward Health Care System in Boston, MA. They may not connect that payment reform presents a tremendous opportunity, he says.
-
It is important that the medical community understands that the cardiology and cardiac surgery communities are confronting end-of-life issues and the need to make appropriate treatment decisions based on an assessment of the likelihood that it will make a difference in a positive way, usually in a frail, sick, elderly patients life, argues Patrick OGara, MD, FACC, president-elect of the American College of Cardiology and executive medical director of the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston.
-
-
Lab work was ordered for a patient who presented to an ED after having experienced her first seizure, but it wasnt reviewed until after the patient was discharged.