Cox Medical Center Branson Uses T-System’s Care Continuity to Reduce Readmissions
Cox Medical Center Branson completed activation of T-System’s PerformNext Care Continuity web-based solution in its hospital and provider clinics to facilitate patient transitions and improve communication and access to clinical data. The facility has set a goal to reduce avoidable readmissions by 20 percent with the primary intention to improve their patients’ safety, satisfaction, experience and outcomes.
New AHRQ Resource Can Help Prevent Patient Falls in Hospitals
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has a new online toolkit, “Preventing Falls in Hospitals: A Toolkit for Improving Quality of Care,” that focuses on reducing falls that occur during a patient’s hospital stay.
ECRI Institute PSO Uncovers HIT-related Events in Deep Dive Analysis
The federal government is spending about $19 billion to encourage hospitals, physician practices, and other healthcare organizations to invest in their health information technology (HIT) infrastructure with the goal of improving patient safety and quality through the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act.
EMPSF: The Role of Nurse Leaders in Quality and Patient Safety
EMPSF
The Role of Nurse Leaders in Quality and Patient Safety
In October 2010, The Institute of Medicine (IOM) released The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. This report was the result of a 2-year initiative by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the IOM, designed to respond to the need to assess and transform the nursing profession. The report outlines four key messages:
2012 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award Recipients Announced
The National Quality Forum (NQF) and The Joint Commission have announced the 2012 recipients of the annual John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Awards. The awards will be presented on March 8, during a luncheon at the 2013 NQF Annual Conference and Membership Meeting in Washington, DC.
Intelligent Hospital Award Winners Named
Intelligent InSites, Inc., the leading provider of real-time operational intelligence in healthcare, has announced that two of its customers have been recognized as Intelligent Hospital Award winners for 2013, presented by the RFID in Healthcare Consortium (RHCC) and Intelligent Hospital.org.
Prince George’s County Health Dept. Implements Integrated EHR and PHR System
New Designs to Make Health Records Easier for Patients to Use
Winning designs of printed health records to help patients better understand and use their electronic health records (EHRs) have been announced by Farzad Mostashari, M.D., the national coordinator for health information technology.
Minnesota Hospitals Improve Patient Safety
Concluding the first year of a two-year contract from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Minnesota’s hospitals participating in the Partnership for Patients Hospital Engagement Network record the prevention of more than 3,200 readmissions, 463 fewer patients experiencing a fall, and 158 fewer patients experiencing a pressure ulcer. The initiative builds on the Minnesota Hospital Association’s (MHA) award-winning Call-to-Action framework launched in 2007 and the statewide Reducing Avoidable Readmissions Effectively (RARE) campaign.
Key Questions for Safety Projects
Safety-related projects may arise from root cause analyses of actual incidents, other structured risk identification efforts (e.g. failure modes and effects analysis), or external reports of adverse events that occurred elsewhere (e.g. Joint Commission Sentinel Events). An appropriate response to such information may be to undertake an effort to review and, where necessary, revise processes and technology so that the identified event does not reoccur, or not occur at all if the impetus is external information.