Industry Focus: Q&A: How to Improve Patient Handoffs
These transfers can be as dramatic as air-lifting a patient to a remote specialty hospital and telling the EMTs that the patient thinks he can fly and will try to jump out of the helicopter, or as mundane as a nurse ending her shift and telling her replacement the patient has been taken off a certain medicine. In both cases, not passing on this information can potentially harm the patient.
PSQH Innovation Award Winner: Cleveland Clinic Develops Algorithm to Power Early Warning System
The hospital and health system set up an early warning system (EWS) as a way to alert nurses to subtle changes in patient condition. But alerts alone aren’t enough, so they also developed an integrated workflow that supports patient assessment, contextual evaluation of clinical data, provider notification, interdisciplinary collaboration, and timely intervention.
How is Your System Supporting Overwhelmed Physicians?
Even though there’s more data than ever, few organizations have updated their processes for managing this information overload. But that’s beginning to change. Health systems are finding ways to ease physicians’ burden with solutions that include restructuring staff and putting tools in place to stem the tide of burnout.
Payer Engagement Platforms Help Empower Healthcare Consumers to Take Greater Control of their Health
With healthcare becoming top of mind due to national policy debates and beneficiaries bearing more of their own costs, many consumers want to confidently navigate the healthcare system and to know that they are making better decisions about their health and their cost of care.
Data Analytics Utilization ‘Negligible’ Among 80% of Healthcare Orgs
The research found that 95% of hospitals and physician group executives have access to data analytics applications, up 32% since 2016, but most don’t utilize these decision-making tools. Eighty-four percent of C-suite officers at provider organizations reported that the only used data analytics to a “limited or minimal extent.”
Target Long-Term Emergency Room Frequent Users to Curb Visits and Cut Costs
The recent research article, which was published in The American Journal of Emergency Medicine, identified four subgroups of ED frequent users: short-term, heart-related, long-term, and minor care. Frequent ED users were defined as making at least four emergency room visits in a year-long period.
M&A Deals Do Not Improve Care Quality at Acquired Hospitals
Hospitals have been involved in a wave of M&A transactions over the past two decades, with studies documenting a surge of deals since 2010. While several other studies have shown that hospital service pricing increases after M&A transactions, there has been relatively little research on the care-quality impact of the deals.
Battling alarm fatigue for improved patient care and safety
By: Jordan Rosenfeld Medical alarms are meant to alert medical staff when a patient’s condition requires immediate attention. Unfortunately, there are so many false alarms — they’re false as much as 72% to 99% percent of the time — that they lead to alarm fatigue in nurses and other healthcare professionals. One study found that … Continued
Joint Commission Seeks to Reduce Maternal Deaths
The Joint Commission says that about 700 women die annually from these complications, stemming mostly from obstetric hemorrhage (excessive blood loss while giving birth). The accreditor notes that rates of maternal hemorrhage are increasing in developed countries, including the United States, leading to the need for increased attention to the problem.
Joint Commission Portal Addresses Nurse Burnout
According to The Joint Commission, of the 2,000 healthcare providers surveyed, more than 15% of all nurses reported feelings of burnout, with ER nurses at a higher risk. A second survey in 2019 found that burnout is among the leading patient safety and quality concerns in healthcare organizations.