The latest results of the Premier Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration show dramatic across-the-board improvement in the performance of participating hospitals, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Launched in October 2003 by CMS and the Premier Inc. Healthcare Alliance, HQID involves about 250 hospitals in 36 states. The demonstration was designed to test new payment systems under Medicare that would improve the safety, quality and efficiency of care delivered in the nation's hospitals, according to a CMS release.
Hospitals around the country are using music as a way to ease patients' pain, lower blood pressure, reduce anxiety and depression and improve coping abilities to get patients well, faster. A 2007 survey by the Society for the Arts in Healthcare, along with the Joint Commission and Americans for the Arts, found that of the 1,923 healthcare facilities surveyed, 35% offered some type of music to patients. Besides promoting relaxation and reducing stress, music therapy has been shown to affect sleep patterns, improve stroke patients' memories and decrease the amount of sedation medication needed for some patients.
Some healthcare professionals think healthcare workers wearing scrubs outside the hospital presents a health risk to both the general public and patients. Some of the professionals note that while hospitals say they have strict rules not to leave the hospital with scrubs, they often do not enforce them.
The Joint Commission has announced the 2009 National Patient Safety Goals and related requirements for each of its accreditation programs and its Disease-Specific Care Certification Program. The National Patient Safety Goals promote specific improvements in patient safety by providing healthcare organizations with proven solutions to persistent patient safety problems, according to a Joint Commission release. The goals apply to the more than 15,000 Joint Commission-accredited and -certified healthcare organizations and programs.
A number of hospitals and healthcare centers are stepping up education and implementing stricter procedures in the fight to combat MRSA, although some believe health facilities aren't doing nearly enough to reduce the risk of the drug-resistant bacteria. Some are now calling for increased staffing and greater resources to meet the demand of public scrutiny over hospital-acquired infections.
Psychiatric patients who need hospitalization wait for hours in emergency departments for admission because hospitals are dropping mental health units and beds are scarce, according to a survey by the American College of Emergency Physicians. Nearly 80% of hospitals said mentally ill patients sometimes wait four hours or more to be admitted, and about 10% said patients wait more than a day on average. Average admission times for non-psychiatric patients were shorter, and 84% of the medical directors said ER wait times for all patients would drop if their hospitals had better psychiatric services.