January 2008
Raising Efficiency. Raising Capacity. Raising the Bar.
State of Emergency
In a lot of hospitals, the ED is the problem child no one talks about. CEOs boast about their new Women's Health Center and low turnover but they quietly dismiss their ED's "left without being seen" rate or dismal patient satisfaction scores. An experienced ED manager once told me that he's surprised how many CEOs discount the ED as a loss. CEOs who do regular hospital walk-throughs often skip their EDs, and employee appreciation events don't include ED staff. When it comes to the emergency department, have CEOs just thrown in the towel? Not all of them. In this month's HealthLeaders magazine cover story, I write about three hospitals that have overcome their ED angst. Through staff changes, reorganization of existing space, creative scheduling, and a focus on customer service, they've caused ED turnarounds without building multi-million-dollar facilities.
Molly Rowe, Health Leaders Media
Democrats Create Task Force to Push Health IT, Incentive Programs
Three former healthcare professionals turned Democratic lawmakers are forming a congressional task force with the intent of pushing through stalled legislation. Their agenda is heavy with information technology provisions, preventive-care measures and provider incentives, yet light on details. Reps. Lois Capps (D-Calif.), a former nurse; Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.), a former healthcare administrator; and Jason Altmire (D-Pa.), a one-time hospital executive, will lead a task force that's part of a broader voting bloc of Democrats whose aim is to advance long-discussed proposals that have become casualties of congressional wrangling.
Matthew DoBias, Modern Healthcare Online
2008 Predictions for Trends in Healthcare
As costs and the numbers of uninsured keep trending upward, health care has emerged as the most important domestic issue of 2008. Here are PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute's predictions for the top eight health industry issues of the coming year.
Julius A. Karash, Kansascity.com
HHS Says It's on Target with '1,000-Day Plan' for IT
HHS officials seem confident that they'll be able to meet all 16 objectives of the department's "1,000-day plan" on health information technology by year-end. The plan was initiated in May 2006 as a management tool by HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt. Its purpose is to help advance the larger goal of having the majority of Americans acquire electronic health records by 2014, Karen Bell, director of HHS' Office of Health IT Adoption in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, said last week. The plan encompasses four major goals, which include interconnecting healthcare, personalizing health management.
Jennifer Lubell, Modern Healthcare Online
Ignoring the Skeptics
Several recent studies and surveys suggest growing skepticism about the longevity of regional health information organizations, aka "RHIOs." Nearly 70 percent of respondents to our own recent unscientific online poll agreed that most RHIOs will cease operations within the near future. Although most people understand the importance of data sharing across competitive organizations, many are wondering if the multitude of RHIOs will have staying power. Financial and governance issues -- not the technological capability in play -- are often cited as stumbling blocks.
Gary Baldwin, Health Leaders Media
ER Wait Times Getting Longer, Study Finds
Patients seeking urgent care in U.S. emergency rooms are waiting longer than in the 1990s, especially people with heart attacks. They found a quarter of heart attack victims waited 50 minutes or more before seeing a doctor in 2004. Waits for all types of emergency department visits became 36 percent longer between 1997 and 2004, the team at Harvard Medical School reported.
Reuters, msnbc.com
USC Engineers Report Dramatic Improvements in Hospital Efficiency Using Industrial and Systems Engineering Techniques
Mounting evidence suggests that industrial and systems engineering can help large, overcrowded hospitals find new ways to move patients as swiftly as a river through the health care system, which helps the medical centers reduce costs and improve service. "Patient flow is, perhaps, the most telltale indicator of how well a hospital is functioning," said Randolph Hall, an industrial and systems engineer in the Viterbi School and USC vice provost for research advancement. "When the system works well, patients flow like a river through the hospital; each stage of their care is completed with minimal delay. But when the system is broken, patients accumulate like a reservoir, and you find chronic delays, like those experienced in many big city emergency departments."
USC Viterbi
Bending the Curve - Options for a High Performance Health System
Our friends at the Commonwealth Fund have provided us with a wonderful New Year's present - "Bending The Curve: Options for Achieving Savings and Improving Value in US Health Spending." Built upon established facts that US health spending is expected to increase from 16% ($2 trillion) of the GDP in 2006 to 20% ($4 trillion) of the GDP in 2016, the authors of this detailed and unique report offer options that have the potential to keep our spending from increasing so rapidly. The options they present are in some cases radical and rely heavily on changes in governmental policies; however, overall, they are plausible solutions providing an opportunity to control our healthcare spending. They assert that over the next decade, it would be possible to reduce national expenditures while simultaneously improving access, quality and population health.
Christopher Cornue, Hospital Impact blog
An M.D. Legislator Pushes for Electronic Medical Records
This Wall Street Journal blog item has some lively discussion around a New Jersey legislator (who is also a physician), who is promoting EMR technology. Scroll down the page and read through the comments on financing the technology. The public is far more sophisticated on these issues than politicians and pundits may realize.
Posted by Jacob Goldstein, The Wallstreet Journal
State and Local Health IT Spending to Hit $10.8 Billion in 2012
New investment in Medicaid Management Information Systems (MMIS) by state and local governments will drive growth in annual spending on health IT, which is expected to go from $6.9 billion in 2007 to $10.8 billion in 2012, according to a study released yesterday by market research firm Input inc.
Heather B. Hayes, Government Health IT
RFID Moves Beyond Assets
Columbus Regional's I.T. staff worked with Versus and South Western Communications Inc., Newburgh, Ind., to integrate the new features with the nurse call system and install an enterprise-wide RFID network. Now the hospital gives every ED patient an RFID badge at registration. Clinicians also wear badges. Each patient badge is embedded with select information via an interface with its admission-discharge-transfer system, from McKesson.
Beckie Kelly Schuerenberg, Health Data Management
StatCom is a HIMSS Analytics client and a HMSS platinum sponsor.