Hospital Case Management – March 1, 2005
March 1, 2005
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CMs should take the lead as JCAHO patient flow standards go into effect
The new patient flow standards from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) create opportunities for case managers to take the lead in their hospitals compliance and adherence initiatives, says Hussein A. Tahan, SNSc, RN, CNA. -
Throughput department reaps dramatic rewards
At one time, the emergency department (ED) at Seton Medical Center in Austin, TX, sometimes had to hold patients overnight because there wasn't a bed available, and local physicians complained that they could not get patients admitted when they needed to. -
Team approach improves hospital’s patient flow
Danbury (CT) Hospital takes a team approach to facilitating patient flow, with a series of initiatives coordinated by a multidisciplinary Discharge Admissions Review Team (DART) that meets regularly to assess whats working and what needs improvement to get patients in and out of the hospital safely. -
Critical Path Network: Hospitalists, pharmacists partner to cut errors
A study conducted by Saeed Syed, MD, a hospitalist physician with Cogent Healthcare, a provider of inpatient management programs, compared results between patients treated by voluntary attending physicians and those treated by the hospitalist/clinical pharmacist team. The hospitalist/clinical pharmacist group had a 23% shorter length of stay, a 21% lower cost of medications, and 1.5 fewer medications per patient than the comparable patient group treated by the voluntary attending model. -
Critical Path Network: VA gets high marks for preventive, chronic care
A study published in the Dec. 21, 2004, Annals of Internal Medicine showed that patients enrolled in the Department of Veterans Affairs health system (VHA) were more likely than a national sample of similar patients in the general population to receive preventive care and chronic care recommended by established national guidelines. -
News Briefs
New Jersey hospital wins Baldrige award; AHRQ releases new diabetes care guide. -
Hospital initiative sees higher vaccination rate
When Stamford (CT) Hospital began its pneumococcal vaccination screening, only about 16% of patients were being screened. In less than a year, the rate had risen to 76%, outpacing statistics from other hospitals in Connecticut. -
Guest Column: Root out causes of DP failures
Case managers rarely are involved in adverse patient incidents, yet they can learn a lot about discharge planning failures by applying accident investigation tools. Accident investigation techniques can be helpful for evaluating why discharge planning didnt go as expected.