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Authorizations for high-dollar diagnostic tests are the single biggest problem with same-day scheduling, according to Wendy M. Roach, RDMS, manager of patient access and central scheduling at Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington, IL.
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There is not only less time to collect the patient's out-of-pocket responsibility if a service is scheduled for the same day; there's also less time for the patient to make an informed decision if needed, says Jennifer Nichols, director of patient access at Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, MI.
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A prospective patient at St. Anthony's Medical Center in St. Louis, MO, can request a price quote be worked up by filling out a simple form on the hospital's website.
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Before a new admission/discharge/transfer (ADT) system was implemented at Lee Memorial Health System in Fort Myers, FL, three patient access leaders were pulled from their previous jobs and worked full-time on the system implementation.
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On the morning a new admission/discharge/transfer (ADT) system was going live at one of Fort Myers, FL-based Lee Memorial Health System's hospitals, Colleen Edwards, system director of registration and patient business services, had "a huge fear we would have lines of people, going all the way out the door. But that's not what happened."
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The single biggest challenge for registrars is all the multi-tasking they need to do, according to Cynthia Norman-Bey, director of patient access services and the PBX (private branch exchange) Call Center at Glendale Adventist Medical Center.
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Recent changes for patient access staff at BayCare Health System in Tampa, FL, include registration kiosks, palm vein biometric devices, and new consent forms that all patients have to sign.
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The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has created a website with a wealth of tools to help hospitals set up the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP). (www.ahrq.gov/cusptoolkit) Frontline users that have implemented CUSP say they not only reduced infections, but dramatically transformed their overall patient safety culture.
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Operating a small hospital doesn' t mean you can' t think big. Ellenville Regional Hospital (ERH), a 25-bed rural hospital in Wawarsing, NY, is enjoying success with a medication reconciliation and patient safety project that would be the envy of any large teaching institution by reducing medication-related events to a very low 0.1 occurrences per 1,000 doses dispensed.
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By revamping the discharge process and working with post-acute providers, UConn Health Center/John Dempsey Hospital, Farmington, CT, reduced 30-day heart failure readmissions from 25.1% in August 2010 to 17% in March 2012.
