Quality and Safety
When it comes to improving your organization's patient flow, choosing the right tools is as important as developing the right plan.
Better Health, a regional health improvement collaborative in northeast Ohio reported that hospitalizations for cardiovascular conditions addressed by its programs fell by 10.7 percent in 2011, building on declines in 2009 and 2010. According to Better Health this is first time a decline in avoidable hospitalizations has been reported as a result of a regional health collaborative's efforts.
On Tuesday, representatives from the Montefiore Medical Center in New York and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) discussed how regional collaborations can improve quality and reduce costs during a webinar sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) Health Care Innovations Exchange.
FORTUNE magazine released its annual list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For. This year, 12 companies in the healthcare industry made the list and a few of them shared some insights with Healthcare Finance News on why employees enjoy working for them.
Collaborative efforts, including tracking Medicaid beneficiaries who frequently use emergency departments and adopting electronic tracking systems to exchange patient information, are among the ways states can cut Medicaid costs, according to a new report by the Washington Health Care Authority (HCA).
A recent study published in the Journal of Nursing Care Quality found that improvement is needed when it comes to the participation levels of newly-registered nurses in hospital quality improvement levels.
A study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that having Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) to improve care transitions decreased hospitalizations and re-hospitalizations of Medicare beneficiaries by nearly 6 percent over two years.
A study published in a recent issue of Medical Care found that increased nurse-to-patient staffing ratios and good work environments for nurses were tied to lower 30-day readmission rates for Medicare patients suffering from heart failure, myocardial infarction and pneumonia.
I was recently speaking to the clinical leaders of a mid-sized hospital, and a senior administrator posed the question, “should we require our doctors and nurses to get flu shots?” The answer, I said, is yes, and it isn’t just to prevent the flu.
Last week the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it will not challenge a proposal by the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) to offer a gainsharing program to its member hospitals in the state.