John Frenzel, MD, MS, associate professor in the department of anesthesiology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, talks about how best practices in the aviation field have been used at MD Anderson to improve quality of care.
Lake Regional Health System (LRHS) announced that it has joined hospitals across Missouri to adopt new standards to prevent medical confusion. More than 90 percent of Missouri hospitals use colored wristbands as a means of quickly identifying important information about patients. A statewide survey by the Missouri Center for Patient Safety (MOCPS) found wristbands are commonly used for alerts such as allergy warnings, fall risks or do-not-resuscitate orders.
As the total annual cost of obesity continues to rise in the United States, the National Committee for Quality Assurance said it will apply two new standards to the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set, focusing on obesity in children and adults. The total annual cost of obesity in the United States is an estimated $117 billion. Further, studies have shown that overweight children and teenagers are more likely to become obese adults, which is why NCQA is adding assessments of body mass index-the ratio between a person's weight and height-and how consistently physicians perform BMI assessments to HEDIS.
Philadelphia-area hospitals are continuing to make strides in improving patient safety, according to the latest report issued by the Partnership for Patient Care. The report covered three key safety areas: preventing falls, protecting against blood clots, and monitoring medications to prevent harmful drug interactions and dosing errors.
Although reducing hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) has always been a priority for the healthcare industry, a recent revision to the inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) is eliciting a renewed focus on this critical health issue. The revision, called "CMS-1533-P," states that Medicare will no longer pay for hospital care necessary for a condition, including HAIs, acquired by a patient during a hospital stay that could have been reasonably prevented by following evidence-based guidelines.
Great workplace culture--where employees are engaged and committed to services--is the best predictor of organizational success, says the CEO of Grays Harbor Community Hospital in Aberdeen, WA. Of course, it's easy to talk about that culture, but very hard to achieve it.
A mathematical model that looks at different strategies for curbing hospital-acquired infections suggests that antimicrobial cycling and patient isolation may be effective approaches when patients are harboring dual-resistant bacteria. In an era of "superbugs," such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureas (MRSA), and an increasing public awareness and concern over bacterial infections, this type of modeling, if used to develop policies and treatment protocols, may reduce dual drug-resistant infections in hospitals.
Actress Alicia Cole, a working member of the Screen Actors Guild for 14 years, is known for the many portraits of doctors and nurses, including roles on General Hospital, Young and the Restless, and more. But a year ago, Cole switched from playing a doctor to becoming a real-life patient after contracting Necrotizing Fasciitis (NF), 'Man-eating Flesh Disease'. This lead to six additional surgeries and countless close calls. This also lead Cole to stage a fight to bring awareness of this disease and to the rise in preventable hospital acquired infections.
Healthcare spending in the United States surpassed $2 trillion for 2007. The ominous prediction is that if allowed to proceed unchecked, spending will balloon to more than $4 trillion by 2016 or almost 20% of the gross domestic product. Put in an international perspective, we spend more than twice what Germany, France, Canada or Australia do and yet most of our health outcomes are far inferior to theirs. New York state's bill for healthcare, extrapolated from the national numbers, would have been approximately $140 billion in 2007 and could inflate to over $280 billion by 2016.
SSM Health Care's St. Mary's Health Center has submitted a letter of intent to Missouri's Certificate of Need program for a $200 million hospital in Jefferson City. The full-service hospital would feature 167 private patient rooms, and the project is scheduled to begin in 2010 with completion in 2012.
