HCPro.com: Case Management Monthly

This newsletter offers case studies, best practices, and how-to analysis to help case managers move patients through the care continuum efficiently and safely.

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April 2008 (Volume 5, Issue 4)	view entire issue

LTACHs can help control patients' LOS
Case managers with patients facing an LOS that is longer than expected or above the DRG geometric mean LOS should consider transferring patients to LTACH, says Debbi Russell, BSN, MBA, CMAC, executive director of patient resource management at Regency Hospital Company in Alpharetta, GA. "Hospitals commonly have problems maintaining their LOS rates and, in many cases, once the stay goes into that outlier period, they are not getting additional payments until it kicks into special outlier payment status, which sometimes takes a while and may be at a reduced payment," says Russell. By transferring eligible patients to LTACHs, hospitals have more beds available, reduce patients' LOS, and get patients into facilities that are experienced in providing care for the comorbidities that often cause extended LOS.

Communication: A main factor in reducing readmissions
In most cases, a hospital's goal is to improve a patient's health and eventually discharge him or her home or to another facility where improvement can continue. So when a patient returns to the hospital for an unplanned stay with the same condition not long after discharge, something went wrong. Readmissions happen for several reasons, but in most cases, they stem from communication breakdowns in the discharge plan, follow-up care, or medication reconciliation. The biggest problem with readmissions is that they cost the hospital and the patient time, money, and resources, says Jacqueline Birmingham, RN, MS, vice president of professional services at Curaspan/eDischarge in Newton, MA.

Save money and time by developing a collaborative case management program
In the January Director's Desk feature of Case Management Monthly, Sharon Mass, PhD, ACM, a founding member of the American Case Management Association (ACMA) and director of case management and palliative care at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, addressed how collaborative case management will be a necessity in hospitals going forward. This month, Mass and Donna Ukanowicz, MS, RN, ACM, director of the care management program at UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, sug-gest making this practice a reality by creating cohesive relationships between nurses, social workers, and other specialties to make the healthcare experience better for patients.

Other recently-published articles from Case Management Monthly:

Taking an interdisciplinary approach to attacking

Data collection, analysis lead to positive outcomes

Case managers and documentation specialists: Collaboration for improved documentation and communication

Maximizing your PA program: How one facility uses PAs to create a team approach to patient care

Manage your fear of the RAC

Make advocacy and quality the focus of a comprehensive case management program

Ask June

Transforming the elective precertification process

LOS initiative saves one facility more than $1 million

Improving nurse and case manager relations

Say yes to best practices in denial prevention

Collaboration accelerates discharge planning process

Reaching out to the disadvantaged obstetrics population

Where case management sits in the POA puzzle

Rewiring the discharge planning process

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