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The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) is urging patients to heighten awareness and become quite inquisitive before undergoing outpatient care.
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After a spate of measles cases and outbreaks in 2008, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is drafting a new recommendation that would tighten the criteria for measles immunity in health care workers.
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Such a confluence of events and unpredictable circumstances e.g, host factors, medical interventions can result in a health care-associated infection that, despite the best efforts of all involved, the patient suffers and the IP is left to ponder the "whys" and "what ifs."
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A growing number of state Medicaid programs are in a precarious position right now: They're torn between cutting provider ratesfor many, a necessary step to balance their budgetsand trying to retain providers to maintain recipients' reasonable access to care.
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New York's Medicaid program has identified increased access to primary and preventive care and other ambulatory care services as a priority, says Deborah Bachrach, Medicaid director and deputy commissioner of the Office of Health Insurance Programs for the New York State Department of Health.
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States are trying to do a better job of aligning their public health goals with quality improvement initiatives in Medicaid, with the goal of increasing efficiencies in state spending.
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Oregon's Medicaid program has implemented a number of programs that further public health goals, according to Katherine J. Bradley, PhD, RN, administrator for the Oregon Department of Human Services' Office of Family Health in Portland.
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Maine's "Dirigo" health care reform is appropriately named, after the state's motto meaning "I Lead." "We built our reform on a Medicaid base and made modest expansions to Medicaid, covering parents to 200% FPL," says Trish Riley, director of the Governor's Office of Health Policy and Finance in Augusta.
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Vermont, Maine, and Massachusetts are all front runners in the effort to achieve near-universal coverage. And many state Medicaid directors are planning to follow in their footsteps: As of November 2008, 14 additional states were moving toward comprehensive reform, according to the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.
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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 ED managers to begin preparing now to be in compliance. Besides, they argue, the new measures will help them improve the efficiency and quality of their departments.
