-
UCLA Health System in Los Angeles reduced length of stay and improved patient throughput by using a "strategic triad" of initiatives that includes interdisciplinary rounds, clinical high-risk meetings, and use of escalation to overcome barriers to discharge.
-
One of the problems associated with the boarding of admitted patients in the ED is that the practice inevitably leads to increased diversion when the ED's capacity to care for new patients is diminished.
-
In today's healthcare environment, as payers tighten reimbursement and auditors from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and commercial payers increase their scrutiny of hospital records, hospitals need to ensure that all patients are admitted in the right level of care and that they move through the continuum as quickly and safely as possible.
-
Case managers have the opportunity to provide valuable assistance to their patients who are frequently readmitted to the hospital with advanced chronic illnesses or who are approaching end of life, says Jennie Roberts, RN, CCM, MBA, chief nursing officer for Evercare Hospice and Palliative Care, based in Minneapolis, which provides hospice and palliative care services throughout the country.
-
Presbyterian Healthcare Services' Hospital at Home program, which provides acute care services in the homes of patients who might otherwise be hospitalized, has improved patient satisfaction and cut the cost of hospital care by about 30% for the Albuquerque, NM-based integrated healthcare delivery system.
-
When Valley Baptist Medical Center in Brownsville, TX, began a project to reduce readmissions in the fall of 2009, the overall 30-day readmissions rate was 23.3%.
-
Case managers are more likely to develop a discharge plan that works if they look beyond the reason for hospitalization and take into consideration everything that has been going on in the patient's life, says Jackie Birmingham, RN, MSN, MS, vice president emeritus, clinical leadership at Curaspan Health Group, a Newton, MA, healthcare consulting firm.
-
When an analysis of readmissions indicated that a significant number of patients being readmitted within 30 days had been discharged to a post-acute provider, TMF Health Quality Institute, the Texas Medicare Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) established regular meetings with hospitals in the community, including Valley Baptist Medical Center in Brownsville, TX, and downstream providers including skilled nursing facilities, long-term acute care facilities, home health agencies, dialysis units, hospice providers, and rehab hospitals in the Brownsville area.
-
When providers bring the family caregiver into the discharge process early, there is a better chance that the caregiver will be prepared to care for the patient at home, says Carol Levine, director of the Families and Health Care Project for the United Hospital Fund, a non-profit health services research organization based in New York City.
-
Healthcare reform has been discussed for many years, at the federal, state and local levels. While its parameters have been unclear until recently, they are now coming into focus.
