HealthCare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement articles from February 2009

HealthCare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement archives from February 2009

IHI expands its horizons as it plans 'next step' campaign; organization seeks to portray total hospital 'as a system'.
February 1, 2009... Buoyed by the success of the 5 Million Lives Campaign, the Cambridge, MA-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is set to tackle its "next frontier," in the words of Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP, president and CEO of IHI. Berwick was...

Rapid adoption sought for surgical checklist.
February 1, 2009... Leaders of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, encouraged by the rapidity with which many of its local "nodes" have moved to adopt new initiatives, are optimistic that one of its latest initiatives will likewise see large numbers of...

AHRQ highlights benefits, challenges of telehealth: grantees in low-income, rural areas provide data.
February 1, 2009... By developing secure and private electronic health records for most Americans, and making health information available electronically when and where it is needed, health information technology (IT) can improve the quality of care, even as it...

Hospital pharmacies meet TJC anticoagulant rules; here's some advice on improving your P&Ps.(The Joint Commission )
February 1, 2009... Hospital pharmacists will need to continue their focus on anticoagulation therapy and improving safety, as indicated by a sentinel event alert by The Joint Commission on anticoagulant use. "The Joint Commission has outlined these goals to...

CM protocol results in decreased denials; docs delegate patient status determination to CMs.(Case managers)
February 1, 2009... Payer denials for inappropriate observation patient status dropped by 50% the first year after Good Samaritan Hospital in Dayton, OH, instituted a case management protocol that delegates responsibility for determining patient status to case...

Education was key to success of CM protocol: research also critical.(case managers)
February 1, 2009... Before developing a protocol that delegates authority for determining patient status to case managers, a multidisciplinary team at Good Samaritan Hospital in Dayton, OH, spent several months researching the process, seeking advice from the...

Multifaceted approach keeps patients flowing.
February 1, 2009... The emergency department at Middle Tennessee Medical Center (MTMC) in Murfreesboro certainly qualifies as busy: It sees nearly 63,000 patients a year and averages more than 170 patients a day. Yet the average time it takes a patient to get to...

Don't wait for CMS move, EDs are told.
February 1, 2009... With the likelihood that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will adopt some or all of the 10 national voluntary consensus standards for hospital-based ED care recently endorsed by the National Quality Forum (NQF), experts advise...