HealthCare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement articles from March 2004

HealthCare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement archives from March 2004

Computer simulation assesses PI design prior to implementation: more robust evaluation required by CMS' Seventh Scope of work.
March 1, 2004... The latest requirements from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) call for more detailed evaluation of processes than ever before, causing one health care system to look to industry for the tools needed to respond appropriately....

Holistic wound center takes DM approach: addressing underlying conditions speeds healing.
March 1, 2004... In just two short years, the Jefferson Regional Medical Center Wound Care Center in Jefferson Hills, PA, has achieved impressive net revenues and recorded a healing rate nearly twice as fast as that achieved through conventional wound care. ...

Best practices guide statewide QI project: benchmarking achieves significant improvement.
March 1, 2004... In what its sponsors say is a first-of-its-kind program in the United States, the Pennsylvania Department of Health has shown that quality of care can be improved significantly for nursing home residents through a systematic and consistent...

Physician buy-in helps PI team reduce LOS: data credibility, physician champion key elements.
March 1, 2004... Winning physician buy-in, one of the toughest challenges in any process improvement (PI) endeavor, was the key to success in a PI project undertaken by Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury, MD. The project, which targeted clinical PI...

Using drug samples can hinder quality: docs may opt for pricier drugs, even if less sale.
March 1, 2004... The University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers in Ann Arbor, as well as a number of other academic health centers, prohibits distributing drug samples to patients. The rationale? When the free samples are gone, patients are left to...

HHS reports on quality disparities in the U.S.
March 1, 2004... U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy G. Thompson has released two reports that represent the first national, comprehensive effort to measure the quality of health care in America and differences in access to health...

NQF launches outpatient quality initiative.
March 1, 2004... The National Quality Forum (NQF) has begun a four-year initiative to identify voluntary consensus standards for measuring the quality of outpatient care, including care delivered in physicians' offices and freestanding or hospital-based...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
March 1, 2004... In our cover story in the November 2003 issue, Tania Bridgeman, RN, PhD, director of clinical path development of the University of California at Irvine Medical Center, was quoted as using a clinical documentation system called TDF from...