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August 3, 2010 Issue # 85 SCHA
QUALITY and PATIENT SAFETY UPDATE http://everypatient.net/communication Top Story Immediate Action Needed in Order to Retain 2%
of Medicare Annual Payment Update Hospitals have
until August 15 to fill out a form on QualityNet regarding
their participation in the cardiac, stroke, and nursing registries as well as
attest to the accuracy and completeness of their quality data. This is a
Reporting Hospital Quality Data for Annual Payment Update (RHQDAPU) requirement.
Hospitals that do not complete this will automatically lose 2% of the annual
payment update for FY 2011. As of July 27, nearly one-third of hospitals had
not yet submitted this information.
Hospitals must submit this information to www.QualityNet.org by August 15. Hospitals that do not perform cardiac surgeries will be able to
indicate that in their data submission. The South Carolina Hospital Association
(SCHA) will begin contacting hospitals that have not completed their forms. South Carolina News and Events South Carolina’s Shining Star, McLeod Honored Nationally for Quality, Safety
and Patient Care McLeod Regional Medical Center has been
recognized nationally for leadership and innovation in quality, safety, and a
commitment to patient care. The 2010 American Hospital
Association-McKesson Quest for Quality Prize™, awarded annually to one
hospital in the country, was presented to McLeod in San Diego, California, on
Thursday, July 22. McLeod is the first hospital in South
Carolina to receive this prestigious honor since the inception of the
national Quest for Quality Prize in 2002. Click here to view press
release. GHS launches “Germ Warfare” “Join the Battle” with Greenville Hospital System
University Medical Center (GHS) as they launch their new hand hygiene
campaign, “Germ Warfare.” With this new germ fighting campaign, GHS hopes to
increase hand hygiene compliance among staff by 90% over the next three
years. To learn more, visit the “Germ Warfare” website. Medicaid
Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) Activities The SC
Department of Health and Human Services has awarded a contract to Alliant
Health Solutions to provide Medicaid Utilization Review Services for dates of
services on or after August 1 for a minimum of six months. To view the
Medicaid Bulletin describing the activities, click here. AHA News Now Highlights CMS Selects Hospitals
for FY 2012 Quality Reporting Data Validation The
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has selected the 800 hospitals to participate in
the data validation process for the inpatient quality reporting program in
fiscal year 2012. The hospitals, randomly selected from program participants,
have been notified by CMS directly. For more on the pay-for-reporting
program's data validation process, including a "validation fact sheet,"
visit www.qualitynet.org. AHA Supports CMS
Telemedicine Rule, but Requests Additional Changes The American
Hospital Association (AHA) expressed support for proposed changes to the CMS
telemedicine credentialing and privileging requirements for hospitals, but
said the changes do not go far enough. In a letter to CMS, AHA said the proposed changes "will
allow access to telemedicine services to continue in a manner that is safe
and beneficial for patients, while minimizing any unnecessary regulatory
burden to providers." However, the letter notes that some hospitals
contract with physician groups or other entities for the provision of
telemedicine services. "Under the prior Joint Commission standards,
hospitals were permitted to use the credentialing and privileging information
from such groups as long as the entity was accredited by The Joint Commission
through its ambulatory care accreditation program. We urge CMS to develop a
similar process whereby hospitals can use the credentialing and privileging
information from practitioners who fulfill the Medicare Conditions of
Coverage." CMS Seeks Participants
for Medicare Imaging Demonstration CMS seeks
applicants to participate in a Medicare imaging demonstration that will test
whether decision support systems in physician practices promote appropriate
ordering of advanced imaging services based on medical specialty guidelines.
CMS will use "conveners" to recruit eligible physicians to
participate in the demonstration; those eligible to apply as conveners
include physician groups, integrated health care delivery systems,
independent practice associations, radiology benefit managers, health plans,
information technology vendors and medical specialty societies. Conveners and
physician practices will be paid for reporting data to determine the
appropriateness of the test. Eleven advanced imaging procedures will be included
in the two-year demonstration, authorized by the Medicare Improvements for
Patients and Providers Act of 2008. For more information, visit www.cms.gov. CMS Seeks Comments on
Hip and Knee Replacement Outcomes Measures The
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will accept comments through
August 11 on two quality outcomes measures being developed for patients
undergoing elective total hip and total knee replacement. CMS has contracted
with Yale New Haven Health Services Corp./Center for Outcomes Research and
Evaluation to develop the measures for potential use in public reporting and
Medicare's pay-for-reporting program. To date, CMS and YNHHSC/CORE have
convened a Technical Expert Panel and developed draft documents that define
specifications for each measure. CMS is particularly interested in feedback
on the definition of the outcomes, risk adjustment and TEP comments. For more
information, visit www.cms.gov/MMS. A summary of
comments received will be posted about four weeks after the comment period
closes. OPPS and ASC Proposed Rule Click here to view AHA’s Regulatory Advisory on OPPS and
ASC Proposed Rule. IHI News Highlights IHI's Perinatal Improvement Community For practical, tested, and real-world solutions to current
perinatal issues affecting baby, mom, family, care providers, and the
community, consider joining the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s
(IHI’s) Perinatal Improvement
Community. Now accepting new teams, the Perinatal Improvement Community
provides labor and delivery teams results-focused improvement opportunities
with guidance from expert clinical and improvement faculty and input from
perinatal teams throughout the country. Teams engage in structure and process
changes in order to influence outcomes - one mom, one baby at a time. The IHI Perinatal Improvement Community offers:
To learn more about this
Community, please click here. New from IHI: Improving Access
and Efficiency in the Office Practice, November 1-2, 2010, San Diego, CA
To
help primary and specialty care practices address critical access and
efficiency issues, the IHI is offering Improving Access and Efficiency in the
Office Practice. This seminar, led by access expert Mark Murray, MD, MPA,
will help practices first understand how their systems work, and then improve
them. As a participant, you’ll acquire invaluable new skills for transforming
your office practice, including tools related to patient flow, queuing
theory, measurement, and scheduling. IHI Expedition: Preventing
Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections, September 1, 2010
Implementing
a new set of reliable, safe processes for the insertion and removal of
catheters can significantly reduce the number of catheter-associated urinary
tract infections (CA-UTI). These infections account for more than 30 percent
of all hospital-acquired infections and the impact of these procedural
changes can be far reaching. Outcomes, patient care, and quality will all
improve, while costs come down. Join
WIHI on Thursday,
September 9 from 2:00 – 3:00 PM Eastern Time for a
conversation with Ms. Bisognano WIHI Network Manager Kate O’Rourke
addressed the announcement that Maureen Bisognano has been named
IHI’s new President and CEO. She has succeeded Dr. Donald Berwick who
was recently appointed to be the new Administrator of the Centers for
Medicare & Medicaid Services. To learn more about WIHI’s conversation
with Ms. Bisognano, click here. Other National News and Events ISMP survey on the
impact of the CMS 30-minute rule for Medication Administration Interpretive guidelines for
CMS Conditions of Participation for Hospitals, Drug Preparation and
Administration [§482.23(c)(1)] call
for surveyors to observe that medications are given within 30 minutes of
their scheduled times, called the “30-minute rule.” The Institute for Safe Medication
Practices (ISMP) plans to communicate with CMS regarding its requirement. To
prepare, ISMP encourages frontline nurses who administer scheduled medications
to patients to complete this 5-minute survey. Your opinion is critically
important. Click here for
more information. To take the survey, visit www.surveymonkey.com/s/30mr.
Please submit your responses to ISMP by August 31, 2010. Study Shows that Pharmacists in Emergency Departments Recover
Medication Errors Pharmacists at four academic medical center emergency departments
(EDs) recovered 7.8 medication errors per 100 patients, according to a study
in the June 2010 Annals of Emergency Medicine. Ninety-two percent of the medication errors were caught by
pharmacists when the medications were ordered. Pharmacists’ recommendations
to correct the medication errors were accepted 97.2% of the time by
physicians or nurses. The study’s authors estimate that one full-time pharmacist working at
a large academic ED can recover about 25 potentially harmful medication
errors per week. An abstract of the study is available
at http://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644(09)01652-7/abstract. Calendar of Events August 6-7, 2010 ► AccessHealth SC Mission 2010. The
South Carolina Hospital Association and a host of partner provider groups, in collaboration with the Dental Association’s
SC Dental Access Days (DAD), will provide a large, free healthcare event in
Greenville, SC at the Carolina First Center. Sign up today to serve as a volunteer for this event by
visiting our website!
For more information, contact Melanie
Matney or Lara Hewitt
at (803) 796-3080. August 24, 2010 ► SC ASHRM: Minimizing Liability Exposures in Ambulatory Surgery and SC
ASHRM Business Meeting,
Co-sponsored by SC ASHRM will be held at SCHA William L. Yates Conference
Center Columbia, SC. For more information please contact Kreeves@scha.org or click
here to view the
attached brochure/website. September 25, 2010 ► USMC Ultimate Challenge Mud Run gets “cleaned up” at the GSI:SC cleaning station.
To get involved in these events contact Geah Pressgrove at geah@postnobills.com. December 5-8, 2010 ► 22nd
Annual National Forum on Quality Improvement in Healthcare
will be held Orlando, FL. To register for the National Forum, please click
here. December 10, 2010 ► SC
ASHRM and SC-AHQ Joint Program: The National Quality Forum’s 34 Safe
Practices for Better Healthcare. The featured
speaker is Sue Dill Calloway, RN, JD. This conference will be held at the
SCHA William L. Yates Conference Center in Columbia, SC. Please contact Karen
Reeves at kreeves@scha.org
for more information. March 16-17, 2011 ► 4th
Annual Patient Safety Symposium. Please
save the date for next year’s Symposium which will be held in Columbia, SC.
For more information contact Mary Stargel at mstargel@scha.org.
Please contact The SCHA Quality
and Patient Safety Team if you have questions regarding this newsletter
(803.744.3523) or to schedule a Site Visit with our team, please complete the
attached form. |
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