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For the first time in several years, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations has revised the look-alike/sound-alike drug list.
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has posted Medicare payment information for physicians and hospital outpatient departments on the web.
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Thirty years ago, Same-Day Surgery was launched. Such a long time ago. I was only . . . well, younger then. But lots of other things were happening in January 1977.
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The federal government can meet its budget neutrality requirements for the ambulatory surgery center (ASC) payment system and still pay ASCs 73% of the rate paid to hospital outpatient departments (HOPD), according to the Federated Ambulatory Surgery Association (FASA).
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As outpatient surgical care has shifted from hospitals to alternative locations, the patient safety and quality regulations and the cost and quality reporting requirements have not moved into that setting, says Ellen Pryga, director of policy for the American Hospital Association in Washington, DC.
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Even after 30 years, the outpatient surgery field still is constantly adjusting to changes in procedures, policies, and payments. Consider these recent actions:
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If your hospital doesn't have case managers who are dedicated to the emergency department (ED) and who work during peak hours, you're missing an opportunity to improve patient throughput, reduce denials, and cut down on patients who return to the ED over and over.
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When Elmhurst Memorial Healthcare looked at improving patient throughput, one of the issues that surfaced had to do with housekeeping, which historically had deployed its work force in a way that did not serve the facility, says Matthew J. Lambert III, MD, MBA, FACS, FACHE, senior vice president, clinical operations.
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The successful integration of case management and disease management is the latest step in the ongoing evolution of the Sutter Health Sacramento Sierra Region Care Management Programs, says Jan Van der Mei, RN, the region's continuum case management director.
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When Cooley Dickinson Hospital (CDH) in Northampton, MA, put the first case manager in its emergency department, some of the staff were skeptical about how well the initiative would work, recalls R.F. Conway, MD, medical director of emergency services and chief of emergency medicine.