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Guide describes 'surge hospitals'
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) has issued a guide describing how community, state, and federal health care planners can establish temporary facilities, called "surge hospitals," to supplement existing hospitals in an emergency.
The guide examines the various types of surge hospitals, and how to plan for, establish, and operate them. It also explains how surge hospitals were established during the recent hurricanes in the Gulf Coast.
"Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have shown us that having plans to 'surge in place,' meaning expanding a functional facility to treat a large number of patients after a mass casualty incident, is not always sufficient in disasters because the health care organization itself may be too damaged to operate," JCAHO officials note.
Pay-for-performance analyzed in report
Pay-for-performance has the potential to increase the use and quality of "effective care," but is not likely to help reduce the rising costs of health care, according to a recent study sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund.
Effective care is therapy that is viewed as medically necessary based on clinical outcome evidence — for example, the use of beta-blockers after a heart attack.
According to author John E. Wennberg, of the Dartmouth Medical School, effective care is underused and influences only a relatively small proportion of the health care dollar. As a result, he said, it won't influence health care costs to the same extent as "preference-sensitive care," which involves significant tradeoffs based on a patient's values, and "supply-sensitive care," in which the supply of resources dictates the frequency of their use.
Wennberg said preference-sensitive care is misused and supply-sensitive care is overused, but he predicted pay-for-performance strategies, along with efforts to reward efficient providers and pay for infrastructure for the management of chronic illness, could promote reform.
Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) has issued a guide describing how community, state, and federal health care planners can establish temporary facilities,...You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
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