Hospital Peer Review – January 1, 2016
January 1, 2016
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Moving from data to action – Finding meaning in numbers
As healthcare systems shift from the fee-for-service model to managing health across a population of patients, hospital quality managers’ work using quality indicators and other data is moving to front and center of the evolution.
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Quality management’s role evolves as hospitals shift to population health
The U.S. health system’s new transition to a population health model has resulted in healthcare systems and payers adjusting to new kinds of contracts and payment reform. Fee-for-service is being phased out and replaced with the concept of providing quality care for a population as cost-effectively as possible.
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Quality department evolution to deeper data, more efficient action
Health system quality departments are beginning a transformation from the oversee-everything focus of past years to a more efficient process in which quality managers provide support, while allowing front line leaders to analyze and act on data.
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Hospital’s sepsis QI program lead to drop in mortality rate
There are many good reasons for a quality manager to focus on sepsis data collection and quality improvement, but the most important one is that patients — even those who were recently in optimal health — can die from sepsis if it’s not diagnosed early.
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Health organization’s PI program speeds up multiple EDs
Hospital emergency department visits have increased by nearly one-third since the mid-1990s, and these high volumes have led to increased problems, such as overcrowded EDs and greater numbers of patients being diverted to other facilities or leaving without being seen, studies show.
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“Warm handoffs” can reduce hospitals’ readmission rates
Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Newton, MA, improved its readmission rates through a quality improvement process that included measurements of “warm handoff” rates.
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Study shows a data route tying quality to VBP
Value-based purchasing has added more weight to the role of quality managers in collecting data related to 30-day readmission rates. These readmission rates now affect a health system’s Medicare reimbursement, and the key is to look at data in a way that will highlight areas where improvements can have a positive effect on them.