Healthcare benchmarks最新文献

Use of Health Care Financing Administration's OASIS (Outcome and Assessment information Set) standardized data is now mandatory for all HHAs (home health care agencies) participating in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. While OASIS requires a "learning curve," incorporating it into the daily business of an HHA is not difficult. Use of OASIS offers several benefits to HHAs and their patients.

Clear purpose and balanced goals, sponsorship and leadership, user-friendly processes, and commitment and capability are four key elements necessary to bring about effective change in organizations. The ability to change effectively and efficiently is an absolute necessity for health care organizations in today's marketplace. To best build employee support for change, leaders must use a combination of education, persuasion, rewards, recognition, participation, and conversation.

A detailed database containing information on patients and practice patterns can be a positive force in efforts to lower cesarean rates. Women's Hospital at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills, CA, utilizes an in-house, custom database, known as OBSTAT, to collect and store obstetrical clinical data. Use of OBSTAT has correlated positively with a reduction in cesarean rates at Women's Hospital.

Project impact provides a means for intensive care units (ICUs) to compare their practice patterns and patient outcomes with others across the nation. Society of Critical Care Medicine-sponsored software maintains confidentiality for individual practitioners and patients. Seventy currently participating ICUs pay an annual fee and lease special Project Impact software to track data they collect on patients. Data from ICUs are collected at a central registry, stripped of patient/physician identifiers, and assembled into quarterly reports for participant use.

Several recent high-profile tragedies have heightened public and practitioner concerns over the safety and quality of office-based anesthesia procedures. Inadequate office-based anesthesia procedures and precautions expose what some estimate to be 8 million people a year to unnecessary risk. The Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care has established new quality standards for office-based, or mobile or "itinerant," anesthesia organizations.

The incidence of asthma in the United States is widespread and growing, consuming a great deal of health care resources. A number of studies have concluded that treatment of asthma patients by specialists achieves superior outcomes and saves costs. Better use of aggressive techniques by allergists is central to their success in treating asthma patients.

Health care organizations can encourage the free flow of information by making internal communications a high-priority, strategic function. A "no secrets" policy is a prime indicator of organizations that are doing an exemplary job of internal communications. Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, FL, provides a demonstration of best practices in internal communications within a health care organization.

The health care system continually battles the problem of waits and delays--but there are success stories. Waits and delays have a negative impact on all involved in a health care system. "Continuous flow" systems emphasize "doing today's work today." To a large extent, delays are built into the way health care delivery systems operate. Reducing waits and delays takes a willingness to change, the ability to communicate, and the spirit of cooperation.

San Francisco-based Market Insights may shake up the industry with its new offering of free benchmarking data on the Web. Increasing competition and greater access to technology are making data much cheaper and easier to get. Data companies are shifting their focus from plain numbers to a more complex analysis.

Southern hospitals continue four-year reign at top of HCIA/Mercer 100 Top Hospitals list. Fierce managed care competition in some Southern states results in top-notch care. In the West, study found that lengths of stay are actually rising as levels of managed care increase.