HealthCare Business News
Jill Rathbun, Managing Partner at Galileo Consulting Group, Arlington, VA
In this View from the Hill article for DOTmed News, Jill Rathbun discusses the Fiscal Year 2017 Proposed Outpatient Hospital Rule and how imaging, in particular ultrasound, is set to be impacted both in a reorganization of Ambulatory Payment Classifications and expansion of packaging by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
by Nidhi Nikhanj, MD
In this article for Health Management Magazine, Dr. Nidhi Nikhanj lays out the path for a system-wide implementation of point-of-care ultrasound to bring quality of care and enhanced patient safety to the bedside. What 6 steps should a large health system use to successfully implement point-of-care ultrasound?
Read the full article from Health Management Magazine to find out!
Group Practice Journal
Michael Shabot, M.D. FACS, FCCM, FACMI, is chief medical officer, Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, Houston and Adjunct Professor at the University of Texas School of Biomedical Informatics and the University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston.
Michael Warneke, M.D. is medical director of quality, Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital.
This article enumerates the benefits and applications of Musculoskeletal Ultrasound and details procedural guidance for join and soft tissue injections and aspirations. Dr. Goyal also explains that ultrasound technology has been shown to be 6.5 times more sensitive than x-rays for early, accurate diagnosis of small bone erosions in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. He argues that point of care US can significantly reduce medical errors and offer efficient real-time diagnosis. US can replace or supplement more expensive imaging technologies such as CT in appropriate clinical scenarios.
ICU Management
Diku Mandavia, MD, FACEP, FRCPC, Chief Medical Officer at Sonosite, and clinical associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Southern California
Dr. Mandavia discusses how ultrasound guidance adds value to both patient safety and removing costs from healthcare delivery.
In his article that advises American Hospital Association member trustees, Rodney Hockman, MD warns that hundreds of hospitals are likely to be penalized by Medicare for patient injuries under the Hospital-Acquired Condition (HAC) Reduction Program starting in October 2014. He points out that each penalized hospital stands to lose nearly $434,000 in Medicare reimbursements on average, with large hospital systems and those with a high volume of Medicare payments potentially facing much greater losses should they provide unsafe care.
Dr. Hochman points to institutions using a bundle of best practices to address this, including 353-bed White Memorial Hospital, part of the Adventist Health System in Los Angeles, to eliminate two of the serious complications used to determine penalties under Medicare’s HAC Reduction Program: pneumothorax and central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs). Both conditions are now included on AHRQ’s list of patient safety indicators.
In his article that advises American Hospital Association member trustees, Rodney Hockman, MD warns that hundreds of hospitals are likely to be penalized by Medicare for patient injuries under the Hospital-Acquired Condition (HAC) Reduction Program starting in October 2014. He points out that each penalized hospital stands to lose nearly $434,000 in Medicare reimbursements on average, with large hospital systems and those with a high volume of Medicare payments potentially facing much greater losses should they provide unsafe care.
Dr. Hochman points to institutions using a bundle of best practices to address this, including 353-bed White Memorial Hospital, part of the Adventist Health System in Los Angeles, to eliminate two of the serious complications used to determine penalties under Medicare’s HAC Reduction Program: pneumothorax and central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs). Both conditions are now included on AHRQ’s list of patient safety indicators.
In this article for Becker's Orthopedic Review, Dr. Don A. Buford explains both the clinical evidence and benefits for the use of diagnostic ultrasound for shoulder evaluation. In particular, evidence for the use of ultrasound as the first imaging study in cases of suspected rotator cuff tear. Dr. Buford, an orthopedic surgeon, also covers the benefits of ultrasound to patients, his clinical practice and the costs to the healthcare system. As the healthcare system moves toward both Appropriate Use Criteria for imaging and lower costs, this article explains why it is time to implement such practices.
The emerging healthcare environment requires expanded patient access while minimizing the cost of care. This is of particular importance for accountable care organizations that are assuming significant risk and must develop more innovative ways to deliver care to drive better outcomes and wring out inefficiencies. Our practice has experienced this struggle on a daily basis as patients, who needed a surgical consult, were frustrated with limited access. Our clinical schedule was filled with non-surgical candidates. This created a paradox where the most specialized health system resources (e.g., surgeon and MRI) were being allocated to a continuum of care that did not result in better care or outcomes, while also increasing physician and patient frustration. The long-standing dilemma was that the wrong patient was often in the wrong clinic leading to an inefficient and circuitous path for the delivery of appropriate care. When evaluating our practice it was clear that we could improve our allocation of available resources with the outcome being happy patients and happy physicians within a healthcare system that was delivering high quality, low cost, appropriate care.