Hospital
RSSArticles
-
Quality Payment Program Delaying Some Requirements
CMS is attempting to lower the burden of the Quality Payment Program for small practices and other clinicians, with a proposed rule that would update the physician payment programs created as a part of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act. The changes could be important for hospitals and health systems with affiliated physician practices.
-
Changes to Readmissions Rule Will Help, But No Panacea
CMS has proposed a change that would have it consider a hospital’s proportion of dual-eligibles when determining penalties under Medicare’s Hospital Readmission Reduction Program (HRRP), a change welcomed by hospitals that have long argued dual-eligible patients are more expensive for hospitals and skewing readmissions figures for safety-net hospitals.
-
Communication Challenges Can Threaten Quality
Language barriers may be commonly recognized as threats to quality of care and patient safety, and hospitals routinely provide resources to overcome that barrier. But communication challenges can come in many forms and hospitals often are blind to them, leading to serious risks, one expert cautions.
-
Smartphone Alerts for Lab Results Speed ED Discharge
Delivering lab results immediately to a specially provided smartphone helps physicians discharge patients significantly faster from the ED, according to recent research.
-
Board Members Involved in Quality Can Be Quality Resource
Quality improvement leaders should strive for a working relationship with hospital boards of directors and help the members gain the knowledge necessary to be meaningful champions of quality initiatives. However, that does not mean that board members should be expected to participate in the day-to-day efforts to improve quality and patient safety.
-
The Epidemiology of Violence: Knowledge Is Power
As hospital violence has become a national issue and the subject of a possible federal regulation, researchers are showing that interventions using the basic epidemiologic principles of measurement and feedback can reduce unit-level violence by patients against healthcare workers.
-
Making the Business Case for Safe Patient Handling
Employee health professionals can convince administration that safe patient handling equipment is a good investment if they show how an increasingly immobile patient population affects the physical health of the worker and the fiscal health of the hospital.
-
WHO Ready to Use Ebola Vaccine in Congo
The World Health Organization is poised to begin vaccinating healthcare workers with an experimental new Ebola vaccine, but continues to hold off as an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo appeared to be dissipating as this report was filed.
-
Profiles in Wellness: Tom Jackson Makes a Difference
When an employee reports an injury or illness, the astute employee health professional is well aware that many other life stresses and work pressures may be simmering just beneath the surface.
-
AOHP Not in Favor of OSHA Violence Regulation as Proposed
While emphasizing its support for violence prevention programs to protect healthcare workers, one of the nation’s leading occupational health groups says it does not support promulgation of a new standard by OSHA as currently outlined.