It is entirely understandable for emergency providers to question any new task or responsibility handed down by regulators or administrators. Busy providers are already stressed with burgeoning patient volumes and all the pressures associated with handling acute care crises.
The face of health care compliance is rapidly changing. Having spent the past week attending the largest health care compliance gathering in the country, I am convinced that no one is immune to payer audits.
Sometimes just making people aware of their performance is all that is necessary to significantly improve care. Investigators at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) found this to be precisely the case when they attempted to use this approach to improve door-to-needle times for stroke patients who presented to the ED for care at UCSF Medical Center.
With the proliferation of medical devices in recent years, hospital providers are now bombarded with a cacophony of sounds, signals, and other information emanating from these ubiquitous machines.
