-
End-of-life issues should be discussed while people are in good health. Just as people prepare for birth, it is important to prepare for death.
-
Recently, Laura L. Reno, vice president of public affairs for the Baltimore-based nonprofit health organization First Candle, spoke with parents who were grieving the loss of their 4-month-old baby, who had died while sleeping in a crib.
-
Case Management Week, Oct. 12-18, is a great opportunity for case managers in all settings to educate their co-workers and the public about what case managers do and the value they bring to the health care system, says Peter Moran, RN, C, BSN, MS, CCM, emergency department case manager at Massachusetts General Hospital and immediate past president of the Case Management Society of America (CMSA).
-
CIGNA and Dartmouth-Hitchcock have joined forces to improve care coordination and quality of care for patients through a "patient-centered medical home" pilot project.
-
Once a patient with violence-related traumatic injuries is stable and about to be discharged, you have to consider something equally important: Will he or she be safe after leaving your ED?
-
An outpatient surgery patient shows up with-out an escort to drive him home. Despite the nurse's insistence, the patient indicates he doesn't have anyone who can escort him. There is no cab or public transportation available. Reluctantly, the case continues, and the patient drives himself home.
-
Faced with an increase in emergency department visits and a rising inpatient census, the chief executive officers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston made ED overcrowding a major quality and safety initiative of the hospital starting in 2006 and took a systemwide approach to addressing the problem.
-
In its proposed rule for the Outpatient Prospective Payment System, issued July 3, 2008, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) continued its efforts to tie reimbursement to quality of services, adding four new outpatient quality measures that hospitals must report on and asking for public comments on an additional 18 measures being considered for future years.
-
It will be several years before the Centers for Medi-care & Medicaid Services (CMS) will require hospitals to use the Continuity Assessment Record and Evaluation (CARE) tool, but hospital case managers can start now to prepare for its implementation and to give CMS feedback on the tool and its use in various settings.
-
"We need to do the same thing to empower patients and their families with information so they can be active participants in every transition of care," adds Skinner, a case manager for more than 20 years, principal consultant for Whitwell, TN-based Riverside Healthcare Consulting and a member of the National Transitions of Care Coalition.
