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Case managers play a critical role in patient throughput and their voices should be heard whenever hospital staff meet to discuss barriers to admission and discharge and how they can be eliminated, says Charlotte Thompson, RRT, BA, MBA, manager in KPMG LLP's health care advisory practice.
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Under updated infection control guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Standard Precautions now include respiratory/cough etiquette instructions.
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While the classic patient access mantra has become "garbage in, garbage out," managers themselves often fail to heed it, says Michael Friedberg, FACHE, CHAM, director, patient access services at Armanti Financial Services in Bloomfield, NJ.
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A Virginia physician who specialized in pain management has been sentenced to nearly five years in prison for prescribed large amounts of opiates.
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With the implementation of health care reform passed in 2006, Massachusetts became the first state in the country to enact a law guaranteeing health insurance coverage to all its citizens.
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While a grand jury in New Orleans has cleared otolaryngologist Anna Pou, MD, in the deaths of patients at Memorial Medical Center in the days following Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, allegations that she and two nurses actively killed patients trapped in the hospital, some doctors fear, could deter health care providers from remaining at their posts in future disasters.
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Spirituality has been tied to physical health throughout the history of cultures worldwide, but only recently has it been gaining new attention as a component of modern health care.
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Chronic pain has gathered increasing international attention as a human rights issue, and a bipartisan bill introduced in Congress in July seeks to mandate the right of chronic pain sufferers to education, treatment, and research into the condition.
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The American Medical Association has spoken out on two medical technology-related ethics issues, affirming that it is unethical to patent medical procedures and cautioning that the use of implantable radio frequency identification devices should come with a strong dose of caution to the user.
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Preserving a patient's dignity is more important than some doctors think, according to a palliative care expert who points out that loss of dignity is one of the most common reasons patients seek out physician-hastened death.