Hospital Peer Review – March 1, 2017
March 1, 2017
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Emergency Preparedness CoP Calls for Review, Upgrading Plans
Hospitals are still moving to comply with the CMS Conditions of Participation on emergency preparedness, which became effective in late 2016, and some are finding that the plans they had in place previously are not quite enough to meet the CMS expectations.
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Use Multiple Strategies for Emergency Communication
Compliance with the requirement for good communication in the CMS Condition of Participation on emergency preparedness should focus on getting information to everyone involved so that no employee is left without information in a crisis, says Brian Cruver, CEO of AlertMedia, a company in Austin, TX, that aids with emergency preparedness. In most hospitals, that will require using several different methods of communication, he says.
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Manage Transition from ED to ICU for Better
ED volumes have risen with expanded coverage through the Affordable Care Act and are likely to remain high, putting more pressure on hospitals for an efficient process for transitioning patients from the ED to the ICU. Tracking key metrics is a first step in improving that transition process, which includes ensuring that patients are not unnecessarily admitted to the costly ICU, where few guidelines exist to establish protocols for ICU admissions and their transition of care.
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Hospitals Do Not Know Own Outcomes
Hospitals depend so much on outcomes data to determine quality, but one researcher says most hospital don’t even know their outcomes. That leads them to make critical decisions based on faulty information, says Donald Fry, MD, executive vice president for clinical outcomes management with MPA Healthcare Solutions in Chicago, and adjunct professor of surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
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High Volume Leads to Better Hip and Knee Outcomes
Larger hospitals and those performing a high number of hip and knee surgeries have significantly lower complication rates and readmissions than other hospitals, per a recent study in The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery.1
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Compliance Alert: First Timely Notification Ding for HIPAA
Compliance leaders take note: The Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights is paying more attention to timely notification of HIPAA breaches. The Office for Civil Rights' first-ever settlement with a healthcare provider for failing to notify in a timely manner signals a change in expectations.
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CMS Alternative Payment Models Gaining Ground
More than 359,000 clinicians are confirmed to participate in four of CMS’s Alternative Payment Models in 2017, CMS announced recently.
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AHRQ Offers Safety Toolkit on Ventilated Patients
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is offering a new toolkit to improve safety for mechanically ventilated patients in ICUs.
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$1.3 Million from Big Data QI
A Maryland hospital has gone from losing $1.2 million in quality-based reimbursement in one year to gaining $1.3 million the next year, after implementing a number of quality improvement initiatives using big data.