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Its a frequent tactic of physicians: claiming that quality data are imperfect, invalid, or otherwise misleading. When physicians are not acting on proven data, the quality manager has to stand up to the physicians and protect the integrity of the data, says Frederick P. Meyerhoefer, MD, principal of the Canton, OH-based Meyerhoefer Organization, a consulting firm that specializes in compliance with Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations standards.
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Discharge planners at some facilities apparently are either unaware of -or are ignoring - a federal requirement that hospitals offer patients a choice of home care providers and that they tell patients when there is a financial interest between the hospital and an agency to which the patient is being referred.
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As hospital discharge planners and case managers struggle to place patients with complex care needs in skilled nursing facility (SNF) beds amidst the challenges of the prospective payment system (PPS), many are keeping their heads above water with a mix of timely planning, community collaboration, and creative thinking.
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The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has issued new infection control standards for 2005, emphasizing at a conference in Chicago that hospital executives not quality managers or infection control practitioners are going to have to take ultimate responsibility for enacting them.
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Health care organizations have been improving processes for years. Recently, however, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations mandated that organizations use a proactive risk assessment technique failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) to improve the safety of patient care activities.
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Beginning April 1, 2004, ambulatory surgery center (ASC) payment rates will be frozen until 2010. And the news may be worse: The payments may be frozen at a rate that is 1% below current rates.
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The recently passed Medicare bill would impose an 18-month moratorium on development of new specialty hospitals, including surgical hospitals, and limit expansion of existing ones retroactively beginning Nov. 18, 2003.
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Could you perform surgery if patients had their hands tied together and were being watched by armed soldiers? Can you imagine treating patients in rooms that are coated regularly with dirt and sand?
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Looking for a program that attracts new patients, requires a minimum of staff education, and nets an average profit of between $1,200 and $1,300 per procedure?
