Healthcare Analytics: Putting Data to Good Use
Clinical intelligence and the role of analytics in supporting a data-driven, constantly improving system are key aspects of healthcare.
Better Patient Education for Improved Engagement and Compliance
Solid patient education strategies are foundational to improved compliance and success with national patient engagement initiatives. Numerous regulatory requirements—Meaningful Use, Value-Based Purchasing, and the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program—converge to advance the accountable care movement. To succeed in the risk-bearing reimbursement landscape, providers must ensure that patients understand and comply with their care plans.
ISMP: Strengthen Your Resolve: No Unlabeled Containers Anywhere, Ever!
Just when you think you’ve made significant headway with a persistent unsafe practice, an error creeps up, and disappointment sets in. The error serves to remind you just how vulnerable patients are to human error and to expose…
Mobile Technlogy: Update Clinical Communication Strategy, Not Just the BYOD Policy
Step into most healthcare facilities and you will notice that while community physicians are openly using their smartphones, employed clinicians are carrying voice-only phones, multiple pagers, or wearable voice-activated two-way communication devices provided by their employers.
Editor’s Notebook: More Like Birds than Rocks
At the beginning of Rx: The Quiet Revolution, Doug Eby, MD, vice president of medical services at Southcentral Foundation in Alaska, tells a parable about a physician, a rock, a bird, and a target painted on a wall.
Health IT & Quality: Getting Ahead
The recent release of the Meaningful Use Stage 3 guidelines signifies the waning influence of the HITECH Act on the direction of healthcare information technology (HIT).
Is Incivility an Underlying Threat to Safety in Obstetrics?
A resident is called stupid and a fool when she makes a minor error during surgery. An obstetrician says to a newly hired nurse caring for his patient, “Let me talk to a real nurse.” An obstetrician says to a newly hired nurse…
Peripheral IVs: Fewer and Better
Our hospitals are busy, high-tech places for healing. Every member of the healthcare team is involved in a critical mission to provide the best possible patient care or support service to help achieve that goal. The healthcare industry is also increasingly regulated and transparent.
ACO Care Transitions: Coaching, Management, and Coordination
At any level of track and field, even the Olympics, the most dangerous moment in a relay race is when one runner hands the baton to the next. Even if the team includes the four fastest humans on earth, if there is a problem transitioning the baton (as happens surprisingly often among top-level athletes), there is little chance of victory.
The Effect of Medical Technology on a Concept of Home
Homecare—the provision of personal, often sophisticated, medical care in the home—has been promoted as an attractive alternative to a lengthy hospitalization for patients. Homecare is further advanced as providing patients greater independence and more control over their care and as financially preferable to in-patient hospitalization.