News In Healthcare - August 2007
SPECIAL ALERT - New Leader Set to Take The Joint Commission Reins
In a 15-minute teleconference with the media this afternoon The Joint Commission introduced Mark Chassin, M.D., M.P.P., M.P.H., to succeed Dennis O'Leary, M.D., as its next president, effective January 1. O'Leary, who has spent 21 years at the top of the Oakbrook Terrace, IL-based accreditation organization and slides into a president emeritus role next year, praised Chassin's selection as "absolutely a first-rate choice to be the next president of the Joint Commission." Read More.
From UF and IBM, a Blueprint for 'Smart' Healthcare
Always on, connected, cheap and on sale everywhere. What people have come to expect in cell phones and personal communicators may soon become common in healthcare devices and products at home and in medical offices, thanks to new technology announced by the University of Florida (Gainesville) and IBM. The technology creates the first-ever roadmap for widespread commercial development of "smart" devices that, for example, take a person's blood pressure, temperature or respiration rate the minute a person steps into his or her house, then transmit it immediately and automatically to doctors or family. Read More.
Swabs in Hand, Hospital Cuts Deadly Infections
At a veterans' hospital in Pittsburg, nurses swab the nasal passages of every arriving patient to test them for drug-resistant bacteria. Those found positive are housed in isolation rooms behind red painted lines that warn workers not to approach without wearing gowns and gloves. Every room and corridor is equipped with dispensers of foamy hand sanitizer. Blood pressure cuffs are discarded after use, and each room is assigned its own stethoscope to prevent the transfer of microorganisms. Using these and other relatively inexpensive measures, the hospital has significantly reduced the number of patients who develop deadly drug-resistant infections, long an unaddressed problem in American hospitals. Read more.
Hospital Quality Alliance Adopts Outpatient Measures
The Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA) has adopted, on a preliminary basis, 10 performance measures of hospital outpatient quality. That is, for the first time, the HQA will ask hospitals to voluntarily report to Hospital Compare information about hospital outpatient quality. These measures join the 32 inpatient clinical process and outcome measures, as well as other patient experiences of care measures, already adopted by the HQA. Subsequently, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the 2008 outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS) proposed rule, in which the agency proposes to use the recently adopted HQA measures for reporting in the upcoming outpatient quality reporting program. Find out what you can do.
