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By tracking length of stay and direct variable cost of care, the case management department at Covenant Health System, based in Knoxville, TN, was able to show a savings of $3.6 million in the first three quarters of last year and a denial rate of less than 1% at most of its facilities.
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Redesigning the care management model and creating a resource center to free the clinical staff from clerical work has resulted in decreases in length of stay and helped drop denials for clinical reasons to zero at St. Vincents Medical Center in Jacksonville, FL.
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Public reporting of quality measures is likely to increase in the near future, and hospitals should get ready, asserts Carolyn Scott, director of collaborative services and CEO work groups for clinical excellence with VHA Inc., an Irving, TX-based health care cooperative.
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It was about 2 a.m., Sept. 16, when Hurricane Ivan roared into Pensacola, FL, with 130-mile-per-hour winds, battering the boarded-up windows of Sacred Heart Hospital, knocking out the electricity and forcing the hospital to operate on emergency generators. Many staff had arrived at the hospital before the storm hit, anticipating problems with transportation afterward, and they all sprang into action to make sure the patients and more than 2,000 family members of patients and staff being sheltered at the hospital were safe.
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More education for physicians and research into pain management strategies appropriate to the emergency setting are needed to ensure appropriate care in the emergency department (ED), new research indicates. Two upcoming studies published in the April issue of the Annals of Emergency Medicine reveal that ED physicians prescribing practices vary widely even when the clinical scenarios are the same.
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The current lack of oversight for assisted reproductive technology (ART) and human embryo research is compromising the future of children created using ART as well as hindering the progress of research into new and innovative treatments for diseases and conditions, a new report from the Presidents Council on Bioethics indicates.
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Last years worldwide outbreak of a deadly new virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), made health systems around the world re-examine their preparedness to deal with a sudden epidemic of infectious disease. But in addition to designing new methods for detecting outbreaks and improving measures to prevent spread, health care providers again must look at the complex ethical issues that epidemics pose to society, experts say.
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In 2001, in the wake of a tragic incident in West Anaheim (CA) Medical Center where three employees were shot to death, state investigators questioned how the gunman was able to advance to a stairwell and a hospital lobby of the medical center after the first distress call was signaled. To ease staff confusion in such situations, the Healthcare Association of Southern California adopted the nations first standardized hospital emergency codes.
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The prospect of uniform codes has been floated in Wisconsin by, of all things, the local media. After a reporter in Marshfield, WI, who was covering a disaster drill at the Marshfield Clinic noted that the overhead announcement of color codes confused employees at nearby St. Michaels Hospital, he ran a follow-up article illustrating the different codes used by hospitals statewide.
