Saturdays around my house are spent taking care of routine tasks like cleaning, grocery shopping and laundry. The television is usually on in the background with whatever is on HGTV. My favorite is Fixer Upper. While it inspires projects in my own home, it also reminds me of that 1980s movie, Money Pit. Just moments after the dream house that needed a little fixing up was purchased, it began completely falling apart. While “good bones” are important, inevitably it’s the basic...more...
In December 2014, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a study stating that by 2025 the supply of registered nurses would outpace the demand by approximately 240,000 full-time equivalents. Regardless of your opinion of this analysis, I think we can all agree that as we kick off 2017, we are in the midst of a nurse staffing shortage.more...
Everyone has points in their career that they recall with great clarity. One of those moments for me was in the fall of 2013 with the addition of the Medicare Spend per Beneficiary (MSPB) measure. As a nurse and quality professional, MSPB was like a golden thread that brings everything together: quality, safety, patient experience, inpatient and outpatient care, provider revenue and payer spend. Care delivery was finally becoming connected in a way that had the potential to engage everyone...more...
As a certified data junkie, I have spent a considerable amount of time studying the composition of the CMS Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating program. While I understand and appreciate what CMS is trying to provide patients and the public at large, I am not a fan of the current methodology, which I feel doesn’t result in an accurate reflection of the quality of care hospitals are delivering across our country.more...
In health care, clinicians have been trained that using safety checklists, watching for changes in vital signs and reviewing fluctuations in labs can catch a problem early or, even better, avoid it completely by taking a proactive approach. Success at these tasks is often rewarded with promotion to front-line leadership roles. However, many aren’t prepared to take on responsibility for planning, forecasting, coordinating and leading as many as 100 employees and maintaining high levels of...more...
The U.S. is in the midst of a national crisis. In the past two decades we have seen increasing use, abuse and deaths associated with opioid medications.
Here are a few disconcerting trends*:
Prescribing opioids is on the increase. Approximately 20 percent of patients receive an opioid prescription for non-cancer-related symptoms or pain-related diagnosis in America. This 20 percent translates to approximately 259 million prescriptions or an equivalent of one bottle of opioids for every adult...more...
An alphabet soup of regulations, guidelines and standards, all competing for resources, some financial and almost all involving human capital to implement and execute, are coming at clinicians and hospital administrators faster than the F-18s that fly over my neighborhood in Virginia Beach. The speed and pace of change in our industry have managers’ and staffs’ heads spinning. The first challenge is staying on top of the information that is coming fast and furious while also...more...
Health care spending in the U.S. exceeds $3 trillion per year and 10 percent of the population – the chronically ill – accounts for approximately 60 percent of that cost. Those patients are distinguished by their complex medical conditions that often require costly interventions. As noted in a previous Vizient blog, more than two-thirds of Medicare beneficiaries have multiple chronic diseases and a staggering 93 percent of total Medicare spending goes toward beneficiaries with...more...
Since 2013, microhospitals have continued to pop up across the country. Leading organizations, such as Baylor Scott & White Health in Texas, SCL Health in Colorado and Dignity Health based in California, have built microhospitals to expand their footprint. Just this month, St. Vincent Health in Indiana announced its plans to open four microhospitals in the Indianapolis area. Likewise, Saint Joseph Mercy Health System in Ann Arbor, MI, is planning to open a microhospital concept that will...more...
In 1989, the National Weather Service retired its coastal warning display system in favor of electronic communication and other technological advances. For more than 100 years prior, colored pennants, flags and lights were used to warn mariners of impending storms. In the 19th century, those warnings often came as the result of sailors having beaten a path to port ahead of storms they had seen with their own eyes.more...
