-
A community-based program that provides face-to-face care management for people with chronic disease has resulted in decreased health care costs, fewer missed days at work, and improved quality of life for program participants.
-
Face-to-face case management for members at high risk for health care exacerbations has paid off for Great-West Healthcare, a Greenwood Village, CO, health plan that serves as a third-party administrator for about 6,000 self-insured employer groups.
-
Improper infection control practices at a surgery center in Las Vegas that led to a hepatitis C outbreak, plus the nation's largest number of patient contacts 40,000 for blood exposure, may be replicated at other health care facilities across the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
-
It wasn't a surgical procedure that almost tripped up the staff at Blue Ridge Surgery Center. It was a pain procedure, says Suzanne L. Broome, RN, director of the Seneca, SC, facility.
-
Identification and reduction of potential adverse events and patient safety risks are required by all accreditation organizations, but not all outpatient managers look at using information from near misses to develop performance improvement projects to address risks.
-
I'm following up on my last column in which I urged surgical programs to include surgeons in decision-making processes to help hospitals and surgery centers alike function better and become more cost-efficient. Talk is cheap, so here are some real-life examples:
-
Basic infection control practices are being reviewed in light of six cases of hepatitis C that have been linked with a surgery center in Las Vegas that reportedly reused syringes, with new needles, and reused single-dose vials.
-
Andrew Cuomo, the New York state attorney general, is going to sue UnitedHealth Group and four of its subsidiaries, including Ingenix, on allegations that they defrauding consumers by manipulating reimbursement rates, according to the American Hospital Association (AHA).
-
At a time when surgery centers are facing Medicare changes and proposed freezes that are causing a seemingly endless financial struggle, a standoff that developed between a private payer and a surgery center chain in Ohio is causing some centers to call foul.
-
An initiative aimed at standardizing interventions related to the rapid diagnosis and treatment of severe sepsis has significantly improved patient safety at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.