Cleveland Clinic has a long history of measuring and reporting data on health outcomes, most famously in our Outcomes Books, the yearly reports on how patients treated in our different departments fare. We've realized that you cannot improve something if you don't measure it and share what you find — so in that vein, I'd like to share some of our experiences in building this system at Cleveland Clinic. We began tracking clinical outcomes for cardiac patients in 1979, and have been using such data to facilitate accountability and learning since 1989. In 1998, we began publishing and distributing that data to referring physicians.
Matthew Hardy didn't know why he sometimes felt so sick, but the 28-year-old Park Heights resident felt bad enough that he would go to the emergency room, mostly at Sinai Hospital, often by ambulance. He went eight times in a four-month period earlier this year. "I didn't know what was going on with my health," he said. Hardy was what's known in the medical community as a "super utilizer," someone who uses a disproportionate amount of care. In an effort to reduce costs and the burden on the system, hospitals and other medical care providers have begun targeting those patients who frequently tap emergency care by connecting them with resources to tackle underlying problems.
More than a dozen patients at a Detroit hospital were sickened last week with salmonella from an unknown source, officials said. There is no evidence the illness spread through food to infect 14 patients at Henry Ford Hospital, according to a statement from hospital officials. Seven patients remain hospitalized but "are doing well," officials said Wednesday. They are in isolation as a precaution. No new patients have been identified this week, officials said. "Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is working in partnership with Henry Ford Hospital to investigate this occurrence," officials said in the statement. "Salmonella is not typically life-threatening and, in most cases, goes away in less than a week, even if untreated."
The remains of a newborn infant were lost at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, leading to an unsuccessful search at a landfill and an apology from the hospital, officials said. The leader of the UC Health system offered the apology but no details in a statement that calls what happened an "unacceptable situation." "I promise the family that we will never let a situation like this happen again," CEO Richard Lofgren said. "I and the entire executive team of UC Health are examining every fact, every process, and every action to identify precisely how this could possibly happen. We have already begun to put in place steps to ensure that this kind of tragic human error cannot occur again."
Chalk one up for patient safety. Make that $110 million. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has awarded that amount in Affordable Care Act funding to 17 national, regional, or state hospital associations and health system organizations to continue efforts in reducing preventable hospital-acquired conditions and readmissions. Through the Partnership for Patients initiative – a nationwide public-private collaboration that began in 2011 to reduce preventable hospital-acquired conditions by 40 percent and 30-day readmissions by 20 percent – the second round of the Hospital Engagement Networks will continue to work to improve patient care in the hospital setting.
Computer-aided detection, a part of almost all mammograms today, appears not to improve diagnostic accuracy for breast cancer screening, according to a large study. Computer-aided detection (CAD) marks areas of concern on mammogram readouts that radiologists might otherwise miss. It was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1998 and became common after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services increased reimbursement for the technology in 2002, the authors write. Since then, it has been hard to measure how much difference CAD actually makes in spotting cancers.