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This informative newsletter is a 12-page monthly resource that provides you with the hands-on advice, tools (including data collection forms), and best practices that you need to ensure your hospital scores high on its quality measures and receives all of the Medicare reimbursement it deserves!

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Quality Improvement Report

Issue 33, August 22, 2008

• Joint Commission cracks down on disruptive clinicians

  Dictatorial docs who demean, bully, or otherwise behave badly may want to get in touch with their...

Issue 12, December 1, 2008 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Facilities making progress on infection control?related Patient Safety Goal

  Part of Goal #7 of The Joint Commission’s 2009 National Patient Safety Goals (NPSG) includes...

• Be prepared for early warning system goal

  For those facilities watching the clock wind down on the implementation year given by The Joint...

• Pandemic influenza risk remains high for hospitals

  Three years ago, pandemic influenza was a hot topic. Many facilities were focused on preparing for...

• Gaining stakeholder support for SBAR technique

  Getting support from stakeholders might be the most daunting task that confronts an advocate of...

Issue 11, November 1, 2008 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Three keys to readying your anticoagulant program

  The Joint Commission is set to survey hospitals’ anticoagulant therapy programs in January...

• WalkRounds involve senior leaders with frontline staff

  If staff members in your facility feel that their concerns are not being heard or taken seriously...

• Use FMEA to examine the causes of heparin overdoses

  Despite increasing media coverage and awareness in the field, errors with heparin—sometimes...

• National Patient Safety Goals: The PI connection

  Ensuring compliance with the National Patient Safety Goals (NPSG) is essential for every accredited...

Issue 10, October 1, 2008 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Diabetic patients with many comorbidities need higher levels of insulin

  Hospitals that want to keep their diabetics’ glucoselevels under control need to test their...

• Antibiotic monitoring improves quality, reduces cost

  In an effort to reduce pharmaceutical cost and stop the rise of bacteria resistant to antibiotics...

• SCIP expert: OR environment can lead to infections

  One of the top experts and biggest proponents of the Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) says...

• Timeouts need to include the entire surgical team

  Hospitals that want to comply with The Joint Commission’s new Universal Protocol&trade...

• Q&A with Peter Angood on Universal Protocol

  Q. Can you talk about the process that went into revising the Universal Protocol to become more...

Issue 9, September 1, 2008 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• http://www.hcpro.com/admin/content_manager/index.cfm

  Hailed by some as a big step forward for patient safety, CMS' addition of new conditions to its...

• Hourly rounding, huddles help prevent patient falls

  To reduce patient falls, hospitals should build a care plan that addresses every patient's specific...

• Assess all patients to prevent pressure ulcers

  Heightened awareness, new beds that provide pressure relief, and skin assessments on every patient...

Issue 8, August 1, 2008 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• New Patient Safety Goals focus on infection prevention

  Revised elements of performance (EP) for medication reconciliation and the Universal ProtocolT (UP...

• Joint Commission cracks down on disruptive clinicians

  Dictatorial docs who demean, bully, or otherwise behave badly may want to get in touch with their...

• Premier's P4P program raises quality for its hospitals

  Year-three results for Premier, Inc.'s Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID) show...

• Ask simple questions to manage your data

  Quality departments struggling to keep up with increasing demands to collect, analyze, and present...

Issue 7, July 1, 2008 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Express care improves patient flow in the ED

  Sun Health Del E. Webb Hospital in Sun City West, AZ, was in trouble. From 2002 to 2007, the ED had...

• Rounding cuts number of call lights by 3,000

  Six months after the telemetry unit at Sts. Mary & Elizabeth Hospital in Louisville, KY...

• Protect apnea patients from perioperative risk

  For some reason, clinicians suffer from the misapprehension that patients recovering after surgery...

• How to set up an effective rapid response system

  Small hospitals struggling to implement a rapid response system may want to take a cue from East...

Issue 6, June 1, 2008 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• How to comply with critical test result reporting requirements

  Keep your lists of critical tests and critical results and values short and minimize the number of...

• Baldrige award winners share experiences

  Engaged employees, happy patients, useful technology, and the right leadership philosophy are key...

• Assess all patients to prevent pressure ulcers

  Heightened awareness, new beds that provide pressure relief, and skin assessments on every patient...

• Prevent your ER from becoming a hotbed of infections

  Your hospital's ER is full of opportunities for infectious-disease transmission. In no other area...

• Hourly rounding boosts satisfaction, cuts patient falls

  Two months after Kernan Hospital in Baltimore implemented hourly rounding in its orthopedics and...

Issue 5, May 1, 2008 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• CMS proposal would add 43 new quality measures

  A new CMS proposal would add nine hospital-acquired conditions (HAC) to the list of conditions it...

• CMS proposal would add 43 new quality measures

  A new CMS proposal would add nine hospital-acquired conditions (HAC) to the list of conditions it...

• Experts: HCAHPS release will improve patient care

  The release of Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) scores may...

• Experts: HCAHPS release will improve patient care

  The release of Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) scores may...

• Prevention, not punishment, key to patient safety

  There's good news for hospitals scrambling to meet The Joint Commission's (formerly JCAHO) new...

• Prevention, not punishment, key to patient safety

  There's good news for hospitals scrambling to meet The Joint Commission's (formerly JCAHO) new...

• Top hospitals' leadership focuses on quality improvement

  Fifteen years of research on hospital performance has given Thomson Healthcare's senior vice...

• Top hospitals' leadership focuses on quality improvement

  Fifteen years of research on hospital performance has given Thomson Healthcare's senior vice...

• How to get your staff to comply with SCIP

  Implementing Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) procedures can be a challenge for hospitals...

• How to get your staff to comply with SCIP

  Implementing Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) procedures can be a challenge for hospitals...

Issue 4, April 1, 2008 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Med rec survey highlights compliance trouble spots

  Originally introduced as a National Patient Safety Goal by The Joint Commission in 2005, medication...

• Follow these best practices to reduce falls

  In addition to being the focus of National Patient Safety Goal #9, preventing patient falls has...

• Preserving evidence essential to effective RCAs

  A good root cause analysis (RCA) is akin to the investigations done on the hit television series...

Issue 3, March 1, 2008 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Teamwork, support from top leaders help boost compliance with med rec

  Teamwork, clear definitions of each clinician's roles and responsibilities, and strong support from...

• How one facility reduced MRSA and saved money

  For those hospitals that think screening every patient for methicillin-resistant staphylococcus...

• Some fear proposed NPSGs will overly tax staff

  No one's saying The Joint Commission's proposed National Patient Safety Goals (NPSG) aren't the...

• Insurer halts payment for moderate sedation

  As the debate rages over the safety of the sedative propofol, another leading insurance company has...

Issue 2, February 1, 2008 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Hourly rounding helps boost scores on HCAHPS

  As hospitals brace for the public unveiling of their patient satisfaction scores, one expert is...

• Data collection needs to bring about change

  Editor's note: This is the first article in a regular series about how to collect and analyze...

• Real-time data can drive up SCIP performance

  Even small hospitals with limited resources can perform well on Surgical Care Improvement Project...

• Focus on infections to ensure CMS reimbursement

  Hospitals that plan to screen every single patient for urinary catheter-associated infections to...

Issue 1, January 1, 2008 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• RCAs can boost quality without taxing staff

  Safety systems in high-risk industries such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration...

• Reactions to CMS' P4P proposal run gamut

  CMS' plan to reduce Medicare payments by 2%-5% and allow hospitals to "buy back" the money through...

Issue 6, January 7, 2008

• Study: Blacks and Hispanics receive less pain meds in ED

  Blacks and Hispanics who go to hospital emergency departments in pain are significantly less likely...