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Sutter Health's Sacramento Sierra Region's customized electronic case management system with embedded InterQual criteria enables the case management department to track everything from individual case manager performance to regional outcomes.
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Now that hospitals' 30-day readmission rates for heart failure, heart attack, and pneumonia are being posted on the Hospital Compare web site, the stage is set for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to start reducing or eliminating payments for patients who are readmitted to the hospital.
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In an effort to clarify what had been confusing in the past, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) changed the wording of the observation orders and admission status, effective July 1.
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When the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) analyzed hospital readmission rates to post them on the Hospital Compare web site, the lowest heart failure readmission rate in the nation was at the Baylor Jack and Jane Hamilton Heart and Vascular Hospital.
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If hospitals are going to avoid penalties for 30-day readmissions, they need to start now to identify their own patterns of what caused the readmissions and use that information to improve the discharge plan, suggests Jackie Birmingham, RN, MS, CMAC, vice president of professional services for Curaspan Health Group, a Newton, MA, health care technology and services firm.
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National health care reform must include a quality component - including preventing health care-associated infections - if it is to become an effective and affordable reality, Mark R. Chassin, MD, president of The Joint Commission, notes in a commentary posted on the Joint Commission web site.
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The Joint Commission takes on the controversial issue of decolonization of patients carrying multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) in a new report aimed at health care CEOs. With more hospitals adopting active surveillance cultures to detect MDROs, the question of attempting to decolonize patients has become controversial due to issues of cost and long-term efficacy.
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Knowing your readmission rate is critical and will become even more important as the health care industry waits for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' decision on how to alter reimbursement based on rehospitalization rates.
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Dr. Eric Toner is a senior associate with the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). He is a physician board certified in internal medicine and emergency medicine.
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Some health care facilities provide medical treatment to people throughout the United States, while others serve those who live in the surrounding neighborhood.