Resources
Clinical respiratory booklet from JCAHO
Now available from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations is the free booklet, Understanding Clinical Respiratory Services. Designed specifically for preparing home medical equipment organizations that supply clinical respiratory services for accreditation, the booklet looks at eligibility requirements and applicable standards through a question-and-answer format. All home care organizations that are accredited for home medical equipment, regardless of whether they provide clinical respiratory services, will automatically receive the booklet.
Others interested in receiving a copy should contact Bob Floro, associate director, Home Care Accreditation Program, (630) 792-5741, or e-mail him at [email protected].
Reasonable safeguards for HIPAA published
If the Health Insurance Portability and Account-ability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is giving you head-aches, consider taking the time to visit www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa, where the Department of Health and Human Services has published its suggested tips for complying with the standards due to be enacted on April 14, 2003. The document looks at a variety of topics, among them patient consent, parental rights, marketing, government access, and medical research and address some of the key concerns that came as the result of a 30-day comment period in March. Among the examples, the guidance makes clear that hospitals do not have to build private, soundproof rooms to prevent overheard conversations about a patient’s condition, as some mistakenly believed. Rather, the rule simply requires that hospitals provide reasonable safeguards to protect confidential information, such as using curtains, screens or similar barriers, which often are already used. The guidance also indicates that the rule allows a friend or relative to pick up a patient’s prescription at the pharmacy, as often occurs today.
According to the guidance, HIPAA’s privacy rule does not require hospitals to make capital improvements or encrypt emergency medical radio communications that can be intercepted by scanners.
"Covered entities must provide reasonable safeguards to avoid prohibited disclosures," the guidance says, and gives the following examples:
- asking waiting customers to stand a few feet back from the pharmacy counter where patients are counseled;
- adding curtains or screens to areas where oral communications occur between doctors and patients or among professionals treating the patient;
- using cubicles, dividers, shields, or other barriers in areas where multiple patient-staff communications routinely occur;
- providers are not required to document oral information that is used or disclosed for treatment, payment, or health care operations;
- providers are not prohibited from talking to each other at the risk of being overheard when it is necessary to ensure appropriate behavior, such as in a busy emergency department;
- nurses and other health care professionals are not prohibited from discussing a patient’s condition over the phone with the patient, a provider, or a family member.
For more information, write: Department of Health and Human Services, 200 Independence Ave. S.W., Washington, DC 20201. Telephone: (202) 690-2000. Web site: www.hhs.gov.
Channing Bete offers Spanish resources
If you’re looking for patient handouts written in Spanish, you might want to consider visiting Channing Bete, a Massachusetts publisher of health care pamphlets and guidebooks in both English and Spanish. Among the offerings are medical illustration booklets that offer detailed, full-color anatomical illustrations to give patients a better understanding of their diseases and bring them on board with their therapy. Handbooks cover such topics as Understanding Pain Manage-ment, Living Well with Diabetes, Patient Safety In The Home, and About Infusion Therapy At Home. Channing Bete also offers patient care skills sheets that provide step-by-step instructions in specific self-care skills, and help patients and caregivers remembers critical point-of-care details.
Illustrated, these sheets offer space to jot down notes and encourage patients to record health care provider instructions, personal health information, and more.
To order, call (800) 477-4776 (Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., EST) or go on line to www.channing-bete.com. To contact them by mail, write Channing L. Bete Co. Inc., 200 State Road, South Deerfield, MA 01373-0200.
New from Healthcare Intelligence Network
The Psychopharmacology Desktop Reference, Third Edition is now available from the Healthcare Intelligence Network.
This latest edition gives health care providers a host of reference materials covering the many new psychotropic drugs that have been developed in the past several years. Included in the volume are:
- case studies that outline the effectiveness and adverse effects of certain drugs;
- authoritative information on the pros and cons of each drug, including how it compares to other medications available;
- an overview of drug mechanisms of action, including pharmacokinetics;
- special sections on adverse reactions and drug interactions;
- quick reference tables that show health care providers at a glance what the drugs of choice are for various conditions.
The Psychopharmacology Desktop Reference is available from the Healthcare Intelligence Network for $149. For more information, please visit their on-line bookstore at www.hin.com/store/p1226. html, or call (888) 446-3530.
Also out from the Healthcare Intelligence Network is the Healthcare Price, Cost, & Utilization Benchmarks, Volume II, filled with data and benchmarks in the three most critical areas of performance for health care organizations. The book provides readers with hard-to-find pricing models, rate development strategies, and capitation rate benchmarks, including coverage of these areas: risk adjustment; global risk allocation; contract evaluation; PMPM rate analysis; and shared risk agreements.
The cost benchmarks volume features advice and data on benchmarking costs and monitoring performance, Relative Value Unit (RVU) costing, identifying core costs, and reducing fixed expenses.
Topics covered include: RVU costing methodology; monitoring contract performance; competitive market analysis; drug cost analysis; and administrative costs.
Healthcare Price, Cost, & Utilization Benchmarks is available for $134.95. To order, please call (888) 446-3530 or visit www.hin.com/store/p18.html.
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