Hospital Home Health Archives – October 1, 2005
October 1, 2005
View Archives Issues
-
Hurricane Katrina creates challenges in handling dislocated residents
The devastation and human suffering caused by Hurricane Katrina is mind-boggling. While the television and radio talk shows were filled with people blaming each other for the slow federal response, home health agencies joined together to address the needs of patients who found themselves away from their homes, unable to reach their own health care providers, and in some cases, separated from their families. -
CMS takes steps to ease emergency
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) relaxed some rules and requirements for home health agencies that provide care to patients who were relocated as a result of Hurricane Katrina. -
Retention is a challenge during major changes
The managers of Gaston Memorial Home Care in Gastonia, NC, were able to keep their agency off the chopping block after hospital administrators started questioning the value of maintaining a service that consistently lost money. They did it by evaluating payer agreements and restructuring the agency to improve productivity. -
Is the doc available after the initial order?
The hospital discharge planner calls your admission department about a patient for whom the physician ordered home care. Sounds like it is just business as usual, doesn't it? Not if the physician who ordered the home care only saw the patient once, for a brief time, and is never available to sign the plan of care or answer questions about the patient. -
HIPAA Q&A
Does instant messaging provide extra security concerns under HIPAA? -
Hospices, hospitals focus more on palliative care
Palliative care programs are growing in number and prominence at hospitals and hospices across the nation, as increasing numbers of health care providers want to focus on medicine used as much for comfort and quality of life as for diagnoses and cures when dealing with patients who have chronic illnesses for which there are no easy resolutions. -
Innovation aids nurse recruitment, retention
Hospices have had to deal with the periodic nursing shortages for decades, but California arguably has one of the most challenging problems, so a Sunnydale, CA, hospice has developed a nursing retention and recruitment program that tackles the problem with innovative solution. -
Assessment tool helps prioritize CNA visits
Hospice families often need assistance with personal care for their dying loved one, but it's sometimes difficult for hospice staff to determine which patients truly need the help and which would be just as well off without it.