August 28, 2013 Rajiv Leventhal
article
In 2003, Peter Anderson, M.D., a primary care physician in practice for more than 20 years at the time, says he hated medicine after failure to use the practice’s EHR appropriately resulted in an $80,000 deficit. Anderson knew he was drowning, and had to find a way to fall back in love with medicine. It was at that time when Anderson decided to use the team care concept in his office, a strategy that completely turned his practice and his life around.
August 7, 2013 Rajiv Leventhal
article
As the penalty for avoidable readmissions will continue to grow, one hospital has been proactive in connecting with outside care facilities to help lower its readmission rates—and the results have been impressive.
July 21, 2013 Mark Hagland
article
The number of patient care organizations across the U.S. in which physician mobility is moving forward is growing daily. Among that throng is the 15-physician Vanguard Medical Group in northeastern New Jersey. In the case of Vanguard, participation in a statewide patient-centered medical home program, and creating its own visiting nurse program, spurred development of a mobile computing strategy.
March 3, 2013 Rajiv Leventhal
article
Two nurse leaders from Oakland, Calif.-based integrated healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente revealed real-world lessons learned for transforming care to improve quality, safety and efficiency in the clinical setting utilizing clinical decision support, data mining and advanced analytics at the pre-conference nursing symposium at HIMSS13 in New Orleans.
January 28, 2013 John DeGaspari
article
Beaumont Health System, a three-hospital regional academic health system in the Detroit, Mich. area, is engaged in a process improvement plan involving the Kaizen performance improvement methodology. Kaizen, also known as continuous improvement, is a long-term approach with a goal of achieving small, incremental changes in processes to improve efficiency and quality.
December 18, 2012 by Jennifer Prestigiacomo
article
When the University of Missouri Health System sought to optimize its bedside documentation workflows, it chose to enhance its current medication administration devices to allow mobile point-of-care documentation, an innovation that has led to a dramatic advance in speed to documentation of patient data, ultimately improving patient care.
November 12, 2012 Michael Kamer
article
Saint Luke’s Health System, a 10-hospital network providing primary, acute, tertiary and chronic care throughout the Kansas City, Mo. area, implemented a single sign-on solution paired with thin clients that it says gives its physicians more face time with their patients.
November 1, 2012 John DeGaspari
article
As Hurricane Sandy pounded coastal areas, its enormous breadth put hospitals in jeopardy throughout the Tri-State region. In Newburgh, N.Y., located on the banks of the Hudson River about 60 miles north New York City, sustained winds of 40 to 60 miles per hour and gusts of 100 miles per hour downed trees and caused local power outages. Cletis Earle, vice president and CIO of St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital, a two-campus system with a 242-bed hospital in Newburgh and a second facility in nearby Cornwall, N.Y., described how his hospital fared during the storm and his view on disaster preparations.
October 10, 2012 John DeGaspari
article
Trying to predict a hospital's inpatient nurse staffing needs is a tough day-to-day challenge that involves matching often unpredictable patient demand to the nurse resources needed to care for those patients. Case in point: the Chesterfield, Mo.-based Mercy health system, a 31-hospital network serving Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, a hospital system that ranges from critical care hospitals with an average census of perhaps five to 10 patients a day to large tertiary care facilities. In March, 2011, Mercy implemented enterprise-wide web-based scheduling software that has significantly reduced the guesswork involved in its inpatient nurse staffing allocation.
September 17, 2012
news
HIMSS Analytics (Chicago) recognizes Fort HealthCare in Fort Atkinson, Wis. with its Stage 7 Award. The Stage 7 award represents attainment of the highest level on the Electronic Medical Records Adoption Model (EMRAM), which is used to track EMR progress at hospitals and health systems.
July 24, 2012 Gabriel Perna
article
Across the country, providers are using mobile solutions to enhance nurses’ ability to take care of patients at the point of care, whether that’s through advanced communications, direct messaging, RFID barcode scanning, medication reconciliation, or some other means. It’s a recognition that nurses, as the glue of a provider setting, need to be armed with the latest technology.
June 20, 2012 John DeGaspari
blog
With the expected decision on healthcare reform by the Supreme Court, what will happen to patient safety and quality reforms taking place under the Affordable Care Act? In a recent article in Scientific American, several healthcare experts said that patients will suffer if the law is struck down. Yet a recent article in the New York Times also points out that initiatives that hospitals have already put in place will have a lasting impact, and the economic pressure to provide better care to more people is irreversible.
