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Articles Tagged With: homelessness

  • Ways to Improve Warm Handoffs and Transitions for Wound Care Patients

    Warm handoffs and better patient/caregiver education on wound care can improve healing when patients are discharged. One way is to ask the patient for permission to take photos of the wound to show caregivers and community providers what it looked like at discharge.

  • Case Management Program Highlights Challenges of Working with High-Need Populations

    Care coordinators and case managers know their work makes a positive difference in patients’ lives, but proving this is challenging. For example, the Camden Coalition Care Management Program demonstrated some positive outcomes related to high-cost, high-need patients, including increasing patients’ visits with providers within two weeks after their hospitalizations. However, it did not change their rate of readmissions.

  • Managing Homeless Patients in the ED

    It can be frustrating to emergency providers to care for patients who they know will have a hard time following through on prescribed treatments or directions because they lack access to housing. Yet, coming into contact with such patients is hardly a rare occurrence, particularly in busy urban settings.

  • Best Practices for Hospital Z Codes

    Hospital Case Management asked Tammy Love, RHIA, CCS, CDIP, director of coding classification and policy at the American Hospital Association in Washington, DC, to answer a few questions via email about Z codes and what case managers need to know.

  • Targeted Case Management Helps Patients Experiencing Homelessness

    The lack of affordable housing is a crisis affecting Americans in all age groups, in every city, in every state. Nearly half of Americans say finding affordable housing in their community is a major problem, according to Pew Research. A case management model in Philadelphia helps a local homeless population by connecting people with the healthcare they need as well as finding them stable housing.

  • Case Managers Could Use Z Codes More for Patient Care and QI

    Case managers, providers, and health systems underuse ICD-10 Z codes eight years after they were introduced. These codes could provide a wealth of data to researchers and case management quality improvement projects. They still hold promise to be a way for providers to collect reimbursement for their work to help patients with their social determinants of health.

  • Climate Change Could Be Newest Social Determinant of Health

    Extreme heat events cause tens of thousands of hospitalizations and ED visits each year. Heat is particularly dangerous for older adults and patients with heart and lung illnesses. Case managers and hospitals can help prevent heat exhaustion by educating at-risk clients about how to stay cool and recognize symptoms.

  • Patients Who Experience Homelessness Face Multiple Barriers to Contraceptive Care

    Homelessness adds multiple barriers to contraception counseling and care. These patients often cannot access OB/GYNs or family planning clinics because of transportation and insurance obstacles. It is important for all clinicians to ask patients experiencing homelessness about their contraceptive needs and to counsel them on all methods.

  • Effectively Intervening with Patients Facing Housing Instability

    The notion that housing is healthcare stems from a growing body of research that links housing instability with higher rates of morbidity and mortality. There is a moral and humanitarian case for healthcare organizations to engage on the housing issue, but there also is a business case. But precisely how healthcare organizations should go about this work is not yet well established. Thus, IHI has partnered with Community Solutions, a nonprofit organization that is working to end homelessness, to examine how healthcare can play an effective role in addressing the problem.

  • Effectively Intervening with Patients Facing Housing Instability

    There is a moral and humanitarian case for healthcare organizations to engage on the housing issue, but there also is a business case.