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A newborn is most at risk for jaundice and dehydration during the first 10 days of life, and these conditions mean increased risk for hospitalization and emergency department (ED) visits.
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Before you jump into a new mom and baby service, be sure you have a market for the program, suggests Candace Sharkey, RN, MS, executive director of HealthTouch in Wakefield, RI. We did extensive market research before we implemented the program to make sure there was a need for doulas, Sharkey says.
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Using a comprehensive approach to care management called Next Generation Care Management, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee has cut both the number of catastrophic case managers and the average caseload while increasing the savings per catastrophic case by 300%.
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Though research and anecdotal evidence seem to show that integrating disability and health care programs for all injuries and illnesses whether suffered on the job or off can get employees back to work more quickly, prevent absences, and lower total benefit costs, most employers are slow to warm up to the idea.
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The University of Washington (UW) School of Public Health and Community Medicine in Seattle has received a two-year, $656,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to evaluate the impact of Group Health Cooperatives recent innovations to improve access and quality of care for its members.
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After an exhaustive process that involved collecting and evaluating more than 150 separate definitions of case management, the Case Management Leadership Coalition (CMLC) has come up with a statement designed to help case managers explain what they do.
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While the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) introduces new programs designed to address the care of chronically ill patients, home health agencies continue to find innovative ways to provide care to diabetic and congestive heart failure (CHF) patients two of the most common diagnoses identified as chronic illnesses.
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The National Quality Forum (NQF) has published a new set of national consensus standards, National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Cardiac Surgery, which provides a standardized set of measures and framework for improving the quality of cardiac surgery (which accounts for about 14,000 in-hospital deaths each year).
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The Leapfrog Group, based in Washington, DC, has launched a new incentive program for hospitals that it hopes will do for the private sector what the Premier/Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration Project appears to be doing for Medicare.
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Faced with a legislative mandate to save $2.5 million over the 2004-2005 biennium, Montana Medicaid developed a three-pronged approach to helping its clients better manage their health.
