HealthCare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement articles from June 2005

HealthCare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement archives from June 2005

OIG signals shift on gainsharing: HCA seeks OK for implant contract: participants say quality can be maintained; experts call for vigilance.(Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General)
June 1, 2005... A few short years ago it would have been unthinkable, but in six recent advisory opinions, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has indicated it would not seek sanctions against hospitals pursuing...

Midwest tops nation in patient safety performance: coastal states--including NY, CA--lag behind.
June 1, 2005... Patient safety at hospitals varies dramatically across the nation, but the highest performance on patient safety is centered in the Midwestern states, not the most populous states on the coasts, according to new findings by the Ann Arbor,...

Hospital treats patients and families like VIPs: service originally intended as new staff benefit.(concierge service for patients)
June 1, 2005... Talk about putting your patients first: Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta has launched a concierge service for its patients and families that it first had intended to offer as a new benefit for its staff members. The switch was made, hospital...

Quality directors give QIOs high marks in new study: majority say they find the organizations 'helpful'.(quality improvement organizations)
June 1, 2005... Quality improvement organizations (QIOs) have gone a long way toward erasing "the previously adversarial and punitive roles" of their predecessors, the peer review organizations, according to a new study in the bimonthly journal Health Services...

Is cardiac care better at specialty hospitals? Data adjusted for specialty patients' better health.
June 1, 2005... Specialty heart hospitals may not provide better or more efficient cardiac care than general hospitals, according to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine. (1) The authors of the study examined claims data for nearly 43,000...

JCAHO safety center offers new web site.(Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations International Center for Patient Safety)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2005... The recently opened Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) International Center for Patient Safety has launched a new web site, www.jcipatient safety.org, designed to serve as a major, central repository of...

CMS releases its proposed inpatient rule.(Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services )(Brief Article)
June 1, 2005... The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published its proposed Medicare inpatient prospective system rule for fiscal year 2006 in the May 5 Federal Register. According to CMS, acute-care hospitals that submit data on 10 quality...

NQF releases outpatient care draft standards.(National Quality Forum )(Brief Article)
June 1, 2005... The National Quality Forum (NQF) has released for comment a set of 50 proposed voluntary consensus standards for measuring and reporting the quality of outpatient care. The proposed standards include measures in seven areas: asthma /...

AHA: GAO's report on 75% rule 'misses the mark'.(Government Accountability Office)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2005... In a recently published report on the "75% rule," the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded that a patient's medical condition is not sufficient criteria for determining which patients can benefit from care at an inpatient...