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Since DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa, AL, and the Alabama Quality Assurance Foundation began collaborating on a Medicare demonstration project to determine the most effective ways to reduce readmissions for Medicare patients, the hospital has increased its referrals to home care, nursing homes, community resources, and medication assistance programs.
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Frustrated patients, core measures that require timely intervention, and optimizing house beds. Those are the issues Bay Medical Center in Panama City, FL, decided it was going to deal when it hired a consultant in 2008.
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As a result of a joint initiative to improve bed capacity, Fort Sanders Regional Hospital and Parkwest Hospital in Tennessee reduced discharge delays, increased discharges between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. by 8%, and consequently reduced the amount of time patients in the emergency department wait for inpatient beds from 70 minutes to less than 30 minutes.
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Cuts in reimbursement and new reporting of quality measures contained in the proposed rule for the Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) make it more important than ever for documentation to be accurate and complete, says Deborah Hale, CCS, president of Administrative Consultant Services LLC, a health care consulting firm based in Shawnee, OK.
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Improved communication, coordination, and collaboration among all members of the treatment team is the key to improving patient throughput, says Roxanne Tackett, RN, MBA, vice presidential of clinical services for Compirion Healthcare Solutions, a health care consulting firm with headquarters in Elk Grove, WI.
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As hospitals face cuts in reimbursement and patients who become insured under health care reform legislation seek care, moving patients safely and quickly through the continuum of care is going to become important, experts say.
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The decrease in the rate of ED patients leaving before treatment at King's Daughters Medical Center in Ashland, KY, from 5% to 0.5% was not achieved by the ED alone. It took a concerted effort on the part of all of the major departments that interface with the ED.
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Recognizing that ED wait times and throughput are affected by the entire hospital, the leaders at King's Daughters Medical Center in Ashland, KY, engaged all the departments that interface with the ED and slashed the rate at which ED patients leave before treatment from 5% to 0.5%.
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In the face of steadily increasing volumes (13,000 between 2008 and 2009), the emergency department (ED) at Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury, MD, has improved all of its operating statistics, achieving a door-to-bed time of three minutes and a door-to-doc time of 21 minutes.
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The nation's first senior emergency center, opened by Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, MD, is specifically tailored to meet the needs of a growing population of adults and provides care that goes beyond the typical emergency department assessment and treatment.
