As the largest healthcare payers in the U.S., the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are holding hospitals more and more accountable for the level of quality care provided. These hospital quality initiatives can impact your bottom line.
Whether your hospital is participating in a pay-for-reporting or pay-for-performance program, having an effective communication platform can help you reach your quality goals, particularly with time-sensitive care and procedures.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Special thanks to our guest blogger, Lee Varner. Lee is the Director of the Center for Patient Safety, and has over 20 years of experience in transformational leadership and patient safety to provide consultation and educational services for improving performance effectiveness, quality initiatives, healthcare best practices, culture training and patient safety strategies.
--
Recently, I was part of a conversation with a group of EMS leaders who were talking about clinical errors. They discussed the different types of clinical errors that they have seen and which ones kept them up at night. A few offered examples where a medication error or airway event harmed patient.
I was happy to hear that everyone realized that most adverse events were usually part of system failure and not just caused by a reckless EMT or paramedic. Furthermore, everyone agreed that EMS clinicians are competent, compassionate, and dedicated people who don’t show up for duty expecting to harm a patient. But when harm does reach a patient, it affects everyone: the patient, family, the EMT or paramedic, and the entire agency. There was no disagreement that harm from medical errors was affecting everyone involved, but the nagging question was, how to reduce those errors?
Simply being able to get the right message to the right care team members in the right amount of time can be an incredibly convoluted process in today's healthcare world. Worse, the lack of a reliable system of communication causes hundreds of thousands of medical errors every year.
I've been asked why Pulsara started building a Regional Communication Network for Time Sensitive Emergencies. Here is one of the many reasons...
Misdiagnosis-related harms (death and disability) are concentrated in Vascular Events, Infections, and Cancers. The numbers in this study are staggering, but keep in mind that malpractice claims only represent 1.5% of actual events, and it is estimated that total societal costs are more than $100 billion annually.
As Benjamin Franklin once wrote, time is money. And while Mr. Franklin may have coined that term back in the 1700s, his words still ring true when it comes to the current state of healthcare. Time-sensitive situations require efficient communication between entities to provide the best possible patient care and keep costs down. Unfortunately, the process is often anything but.
In emergent care, an incredibly powerful opportunity exists to deliver quality healthcare. We can help you level up your quality game by improving the patient journey and facilitating the delivery of critical care. Whether you're treating trauma, stroke, cardiac arrest, or sepsis, every second counts. Time is tissue.
When it comes to your hospital's performance, people are looking. They want to ensure they receive the best care - for those 'just in case' scenarios. They want to see where you stack up, in comparison to the competition.
In today's world, performance and ranking take on even greater significance with the increased importance of social proof. Over 70% of internet users say they looked online for health information within the past year, with the most commonly researched topics being specific diseases or conditions; treatments or procedures; and doctors or other health professionals. About 26% of Internet users have read about or watched someone else’s experience about health or medical issues in the last year.
Let's face it: time-critical performance is, well, critical for your hospital. It affects your hospital's certification. It affects your bottom line. Most importantly, it affects patient outcomes where time is tissue. To ensure that all hospitals adhere to a mission of quality, the Joint Commission measures performance in time-critical care situations to make sure that we all stay on track and work towards improvement.
How does your hospital stack up against these critical quality benchmarks?
As healthcare professionals, we have a powerful opportunity to change things for the better. To improve the lives of patients and the healthcare system as a whole - by demanding better processes and changes to protocols that simply don't work. And, to improve quality in healthcare delivery.
The increased focus on quality in healthcare over the past two decades has inevitably resulted in more regulation, certification, and accreditation of hospitals and providers.
Today, many organizations serve as stewards of quality, helping us measure, benchmark, and ensure quality across the healthcare industry. They remind us how far we’ve come, and how far we have to go in achieving excellence in healthcare.
Jump into the way, way back time machine with us, if you would, to the beginning of the new millennium. It was a much different time for sure. So many industries were on the verge of a paradigm shift, including healthcare. The National Academy of Medicine raised an important red flag about - and focused public awareness on - patient safety, or the lack thereof.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Special thanks to today's guest blogger, Reid Kiser*
--
What gets measured gets improved. You’re likely familiar with this motto, used widely across all business sectors. Measurement of quality within our healthcare industry has increasingly become a priority over the last few decades. As a result of this quality measurement, we have seen improved patient care, health outcomes, and more efficient care delivery.
Your organization may already have experience with quality measurement. After all, it’s a “must” for most in meeting state and federal requirements – assuming you want to be reimbursed for healthcare services and remain in operation. But what does this measurement actually entail?
EDITOR'S NOTE: Special thanks to today's guest blogger, Reid Kiser*
--
It’s probably safe to say that we have all established goals – for ourselves or others – at some point in our lives. In follow-up to last week’s blog, I’d like to focus on goals related to improving the quality of healthcare. This has been a major focus for the industry over the past few decades. And most recently, the concept of value-based healthcare has taken root, whereby organizations are increasingly mindful of inefficiencies and waste.
But, where does one begin with establishing goals for improving quality? How does one know where efficiencies can be gained? Wait, there’s waste in our healthcare system? It’s hard to believe, considering the numbers of patients who can’t obtain the care they need to begin with.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Special thanks to our guest blogger, Reid Kiser, Founder, President, and CEO of Kiser Healthcare Solutions. Reid is an innovative leader who has served in a variety of capacities with healthcare organizations over the past 20 years addressing healthcare quality, performance measurement, data analytics and reporting, and business systems design. He currently provides strategic consulting services and subject matter expertise through client engagements and multi-stakeholder panels focused on improving healthcare quality. He can be reached at rrkiser@kisersolutions.com.
--
Quality is a critical piece of the health care equation. To date, so much focus (and rightfully so) has been placed on prevention and management of chronic conditions, and more recently, overuse and inappropriate use. After all, these contribute to a significant chunk of our industry’s healthcare costs. But what about all of the inefficiencies and waste our systems generate when it comes to provider communications and care delivery? It's hard for most people who don't work in healthcare to get over the fact that fax machines still hold a place on countertops at our medical facilities. And providers still wear beepers on the belt loop? Clutter is a term that comes to mind, thanks to my wife’s teachings.
