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If planning isnt already under way, the time is now for your hospital to get ready for implementation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Acts (HIPAA) security rule, which takes effect April 21, 2005.
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A new career ladder for emergency department registrars at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, NC, has helped reduce staff turnover and is providing increased motivation for employees to perform at higher levels in cash collections, among several other categories.
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ED volume increasing, most hospitals report.
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A dedicated billing analyst for your emergency department (ED) can generate hundreds of thousands of dollars that goes straight to the bottom line instead of just flying out the window, say two managers who have added about $300,000 a year.
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An adult patient with fever and cough: This is something you probably see at least once a day and perhaps dozens of times a day in your emergency department (ED) during the flu season. But did you know about new recommendations that call for changes concerning when patients receive antibiotics, which diagnostic tests they are given, and whether they are discharged or admitted?
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For case managers working in an acute-care environment, advocacy is a fundamental principle of the services they provide. Advocacy may be described simply as wanting, getting, and doing what is in the best interest of the patient and the family. In practice, however, case managers find themselves acting as advocates not only for the patient and family but for the hospital and provider of care as well.
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Before Virtua Health instituted a Six Sigma project to improve its congestive heart failure program, the hospital systems average length of stay (LOS) was 6.5 days, compared with the Medicare benchmark of 4.2 days. After a pilot project at one of the Marlton, NJ-based nonprofit health care providers four hospitals, the LOS dropped to four days with a savings of $116,000 per year in staff and room costs.
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A new preadmission program at the University of California (UC) Davis Health System is building a stronger link between hospital and physicians office and identifying issues much earlier in the process issues that might affect length of stay (LOS).
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An experimental blood oxygenation device has the potential to help thousands of patients with severe emphysema or other lung conditions. The device has been thoroughly tested in laboratory animals, but human trials would involve major invasive procedures for research participants and place them at very high risk of death or serious complications.
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Paramedics in the Denver area will be administering an experimental blood substitute to patients who meet certain criteria under an unusual research protocol that allows patients to be recruited without giving informed consent.
