HealthCare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement articles from August 2004

HealthCare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement archives from August 2004

What pay for performance can mean for quality managers: CEOs are paying more attention to public data.(health care industry)
August 1, 2004... Make no mistake about it. Hospital CEOs are paying greater attention these days to the growing number of report cards and other publicly available comparable data that show where their facilities stand vis-a-vis the competition. While...

Take proactive steps with pay for performance.(health care industry)
August 1, 2004... With a growing number of private insurers and agencies such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) heavily involved in pay-for-performance arrangements, quality managers should become proactive about exploring and understanding...

HealthGrades opening up methodology to review: company will explain numbers behind ratings.(Health Grades Inc.,)
August 1, 2004... Lakewood, CO-based HealthGrades, whose web site (www.healthgrades.com) is a leading consumer destination for nationwide quality ratings of hospitals, physicians, and nursing homes, has opened for review its methodology for comparing the...

Researchers unveil tool to predict cardiac death risk: identifying high-risk patients can guide treatment.(risk predicting tool)
August 1, 2004... An international group of researchers has created a risk-predicting tool that enables clinicians to calculate the chances that a particular patient will die within six months of going home from the hospital after a heart attack or unstable...

Evidence-based design could help quality of care: literature review shows impact on outcomes.(construction of hospitals in an innovative way which has a good impact on patient health)
August 1, 2004... You may not be an architect, but it might be time for you to start paying a little more attention to the way your hospital is designed--especially if you're about to have a new facility built or you're embarking on a substantial renovation. ...

Children in hospitals often have adverse events: those younger than 1 year are at highest risk.
August 1, 2004... According to new research from the Rockville, MD-based Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), children in hospitals often experience adverse patient safety events (i.e., medical injuries or errors) in the course of their care, with...

New surgery standards could save 8,000 lives.
August 1, 2004... If all hospitals met the quality standards for five high-risk surgeries set by the Washington, DC-based Leapfrog Group (www.leapfroggroup.org), it would save nearly 8,000 lives each year, according to a new study from the University of Michigan...