More adults covered by Pennsylvania's HMOs were hospitalized for diabetes and other illnesses in 2006, while more children spent time in the hospital for asthma treatment, according to a report from the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council. The Council based its findings on an analysis of 2006 data for nine major for-profit health maintenance organizations, but it provided no national comparison of hospitalization rates and no explanation for why the numbers were increasing. "This shows areas where HMOs can focus their quality improvement efforts," council spokeswoman Stephanie Suran told the Associated Press.
The quality and patient satisfaction ratings of local hospitals were all over the pages of newspapers earlier this week, after CMS released the long-awaited results of its Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey. The story made The New York Times and other high profile news outlets, spurring consumer interest in how their local hospitals fared in the survey. For consumers, it's new, it's fresh, and they're interested.
But for most quality directors, the numbers posted on the Hospital Compare site are old news. That's what Derrick Suehs, chief quality officer for Syracuse, NY's Crouse Hospital told me earlier this week. The data posted on the Hospital Compare site was taken from surveys completed between October 2006 and June 2007. That's a lot of time for a lot of changes to take place at a hospital--and Suehs says Crouse has already addressed the areas where Hospital Compare's results say it is lacking.
Internally, Suehs says his challenge is to make sure that hospital employees don't get caught up in the newly-posted numbers, but instead, continue to work at providing safe and quality care for all patients. But with newspapers and other media outlets talking about HCAHPS and the Hospital Compare site, how do you keep potential patients from getting caught up in the numbers posted there?
"It is important that the hospital explain to the public how the information and data is collected and reported--and in this case, through HCAHPS--without being defensive," says Suehs.
The best way to do this is to be transparent. Use your hospital's Web site to take ownership of your data and present the most current statistics with an explanation of where the numbers came from. Like many hospitals, Crouse partners with a survey vendor that gives them more immediate results of patient satisfaction data--long before it is posted on the Hospital Compare site. By using data that is days--instead of months--old, Crouse has been able to address areas where it is lacking and make improvements, but on Hospital Compare patients won't see that for several months--until the next HCAHPS results are posted.
"We emphasize what our current results are and what we're doing to continuously improve. We back our claims with simple, but statistically valid numbers and visuals that the general public can understand," Suehs says.
If you can see the current data, let your patients see it as well. Share with them the progress you're making and provide the information they're looking for when choosing a hospital. Give them a short explanation of why the data is different and the work your organization has been doing to make the numbers stronger.
CMS has brought patient satisfaction information into the public eye, and now, as quality directors, we need to take charge of how our hospital is seen by the public and do our best to make sure that our hospital does its best to communicate information to those inside and outside the hospital. If your hospital isn't yet "owning" its information and how it is presented, the time is now.
California's Sonoma Valley Hospital is fighting infections with the use of telemedicine. The hospital is partnering with UC Davis Medical Center to allow staff at Sonoma Valley to get expert opinion on infection cases using the state of the art technology. Using new technology and an Internet hookup, Sonoma Valley staff can instantly contact a physician at UC Davis, who then can use a camera and monitor to see the problem and offer advice in real time.
California health investigators have found no health violations in an inspection of Fresno-based Saint Agnes Medical Center following an infection outbreak in the hospital's cardiac surgery unit. At least 12 Saint Agnes patients contracted life-threatening bacterial infections between January 2007 and September 2007. Hospital officials said the infection rate returned to normal since then, and current patients are not at risk for infections.
A Rhode Island bill requiring hospitals to report all hospital-borne infections within 72 hours is moving swiftly through the General Assembly. The bill's sponsor, Hanna M. Gallo, said she was inundated with e-mails and phone calls from Rhode Islanders with stories about friends and loved ones who acquired devastating infections or complications as the result of hospital stays. There are those who question the bill's effectiveness, however, saying it could divert resources away from battling infections in the hospitals themselves.
During a recent visit to Boston, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael O. Leavitt said the increasing number of incentives to provide more and more procedures is the largest contributor to rising health costs. To help streamline costs, Leavitt said the country needs a central billing system monetary quality incentives.