The average 30-day hospital readmission rate fell to 18.4% in calendar year 2012 from 19% during the previous five years, according to analysis by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). That translates to about 70,000 fewer readmissions for the year, CMS said.
Credentialing Resource Center Digest - Volume 14, Issue 23
More hospitals and large multispecialty groups are promoting their "top doctors" as patient magnets, but leadership and physicians alike must proceed with caution when advertising their best practitioners, according to an ethics column on the amednews.com website.
When is an action reportable to the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB)? The Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration’s Data Bank News website offers periodic reporting scenario articles that answer this question. The following was posted...
The Joint Commission and the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) are urging healthcare organizations to recognize National Time Out Day to help draw attention to the time out as a tool to prevent of wrong-site, wrong-side, wrong-procedure, or wrong-person surgery. In a letter...
When patients, information, and materials flow efficiently through the ED, all aspects of care there can improve significantly. Hospitals are working to implement various flow schemes—such as split flow, bed counting, and fast tracking—all in an effort to move patients more efficiently through...
The American Telemedicine Association (ATA) has published new practice guidelines that outline best practices for delivery of online mental health services. “Practice Guidelines For Video-Based Online Mental Health Services” is designed to help practitioners provide safe, effective care when...
Credentialing Resource Center Digest - Volume 14, Issue 22
As hospital and health systems examine how to improve the patient experience, one prominent constituency increasingly is not being considered to lead the effort: physicians.
Credentialing Resource Center Digest - Volume 14, Issue 22
Hospitals can’t survive without doctors who have a real stake in the hospital’s success. Most doctors can’t survive in small private practice. But the obvious way to mesh their interests—physician employment by hospitals or practice acquisitions—is losing its luster in many corners, so a new...
A New Jersey Superior Court jury has awarded a former Bayonne Medical Center hematology technician more than $2.1 million under the state’s whistleblower law. The suit alleged that the plaintiff was disciplined and ultimately fired about a month after he complained that his supervisor did...
Nighttime intensivist staffing had no significant benefits on ICU or hospital length of stay, according to a study recently published online in the New England Journal of Medicine. In a yearlong study, researchers surveyed more than 1,500 patients admitted...