-
Sometimes, you need someone to lead a project. Sometimes, it's easy. But what about those times when you just can't find someone to take the helm? Helen Macfie, Pharm.D., senior vice president of performance improvement at the six-hospital MemorialCare Health System in Southern California thinks she's got it figured out. She has a top 10 list that might help others, too.
-
Although many hospitals worked hard to be ready for the implementation of ICD-10 coding to replace the decades-old ICD-9, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has delayed final implementation until Oct. 1, 2013.
-
April and May were busy months for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which issued several proposed and final rules that will affect hospitals and other healthcare organizations for years to come.
-
The question of gown use when entering patient isolation rooms is a recurrent one, so it is worth noting that this is the current thinking of The Joint Commission on the subject:
-
Before Kootenai Medical Center in Coeur d'Alene, ID, began its pain care management program, emergency department physicians were spending 36% of their work day seeing patients whose primary complaint was pain, excluding orthopedic patients and those experiencing chest pain.
-
By centralizing the patient transfer process, Baylor Health Care System, with headquarters in Dallas, has made it easier for patient to transfer from one hospital to another and facilitates communication between clinicians.
-
[Editor's note: Last month in Case Management Insider, we started our discussion on the case management process. We reviewed the first two steps in the process which were "selection and screening" and "patient assessment and diagnosis." In this month's edition we will continue to review the steps that case manager's use in their daily work to achieve positive outcomes for their patients and their organizations.]
-
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) instructed state Medicaid agencies to develop a RAC program by Jan. 1 of this year but the program is not expected to be in full swing until well into 2013.
-
Many hospital associates believe that registration staff simply sit at their desk and greet patients, reports Barbara Blum, director of access, admitting, and registration at MedStar Health in Columbia, MD. "They have no idea what the registration staff's responsibilities include," Blum says.
-
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has delayed the implementation of the ICD-10 procedure and diagnostic coding set, but that doesn't mean that hospitals can forget about preparing for the conversion to the new system, says Deborah Hale, CCS, CCDS, president and chief executive officer of Administrative Consultant Service, a healthcare consulting firm based in Shawnee, OK.