March 24, 2011
This report focuses on importance of planning for end-of-life care. It seeks to help healthcare managers, policy makers, government officials, and healthcare consumers achieve the following goals:
- “Inform and Empower (healthcare users);
- Support A Health Care System that Ensures High-Quality Patient-Centered Care;
- Ensure A Knowledgeable, Competent, and Compassionate Workforce;
- Create Financing Structures that Promote Patient-Centered Care;
- Create A Responsible Entity to Ensure Excellence and Accountability;
- Employ Quality Indicators and Performance Measurement.”
The report advocates finding out what patients really want and meeting these wants through advance care planning, palliative care systems, and hospice planning. This approach improves overall quality of life for patients and helps families and friends overcome loss.
“
- Inform and Empower (healthcare users)
- Support A Health Care System that Ensures High-Quality Patient-Centered Care
- Ensure A Knowledgeable, Competent, and Compassionate Workforce
- Create Financing Structures that Promote Patient-Centered Care
- Create A Responsible Entity to Ensure Excellence and Accountability
- Employ Quality Indicators and Performance Measurement
.”
The report advocates finding out what patients really want and meeting these wants through advance care planning, palliative care systems, and hospice planning. This approach improves overall quality of life for patients and helps families and friends overcome loss.
Posted in READ Portal, Reports & Papers | Tagged with Access to care, Health care reform, Health services for the aged, Hospice care, Palliative care, Patient-centered care | No Comments
March 22, 2011
“In Chapter 1 we understand why health information should be made available directly to patients and why electronic information is the best means of information sharing. A few important aspects related to these issues are laid down: trustworthiness and comprehensibility. Information should be available to patients in all languages so that when faced with such information, all patients can have the opportunity to understand it with the maximum level of responsibility and data security.
Moreover, another feature of modern technologies is technical interoperability, which should be seen as a future ‘must do’ so that information becomes not only mobile but accessible. In light of this, e-health should bring with it the simplification of administrative procedures and should be a source of education and evaluation for the medical profession, facilitating the patient-doctor relationship.
Chapter 2 tries to answer just that, explaining why we are so sure that e-health is a tool that empowers citizens. It will deliver key services such as rapid access to medical records, making it possible that a chronic disease could even be remotely monitored or that 5 million yearly prescription errors could be avoided. Thus, it improves the management of healthcare and what is essential to remember is that we know it works. A similar program has already been implemented in Sweden and people there could tangibly feel that it delivered on its promises. In addition, Malta, Germany, Slovenia and Slovakia have developed ID cards where health and illness information is accessibly stored.
Chapter 3 then explains two aspects about ICT technologies: that projects such as the Virtual Physiological Human were a success and that in spite of being an advanced technological tool e-health is still in its infancy and has even greater potential for innovation. Hence, this chapter explains in specific terms what e-health does and most importantly what it could do in practice.
Last but not least, Chapter 4 puts the topic into perspective, telling of present and future challenges that affect the medical profession and overall, the EU and its patients. The two articles both recognize that under the pressure of an ageing population phenomenon, healthcare services need the digitisation that could be brought by e-health investments. In this sense, the main points voiced refer to training professionals in the best way possible, facilitating for them both hardware and software material.”
Posted in READ Portal, Reports & Papers | Tagged with Benchmarking, e-health, Efficiency, Forecasting, Health technology, Information technology, Medical records, Patient-centered care, Technology | No Comments
March 3, 2011
Memorial Hermann Memorial City Medical Center (Memorial City) achieved superior readmission rates in two of the three clinical areas reported to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Its readmission rate for patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and pneumonia surpassed the best 10 percent of hospitals in the country for the selection period. Its readmission rate for heart failure was not as strong, outperforming the national average only by a narrow margin.
Specifically, the following efforts and patient-focused interventions, which were initiated by the system and implemented at the hospital, seem to contribute to Memorial City’s low readmission rates:
Organizational efforts
- Emphasis on quality, with a clear leadership vision that is communicated to all clinical staff and backed up by the commitment of needed resources. The health system aims to “do the right thing the first time.”
- Concurrent review of performance on core measures during a patient’s stay to monitor achievement of goals, with findings reported to physicians.
- Extensive employee training related to the system’s top priorities to make sure everyone is “rowing in the right direction.”
Posted in READ Portal, Reports & Papers | Tagged with Benchmarking, Evidence-based, Indicators, Patient-centered care, Quality of care | No Comments
February 24, 2011
This article reviews the efficacy of British Columbia’s Shared Care initiative. The initiative is a collaboration between family doctors and healthcare specialists. It’s aim is to improve quality of primary care through increased communications and thereby decrease the demands on specialists, thereby improving productivity and decreasing hospital administrations as the open lines of communication optimize patient placement.
Posted in Journal Articles, READ Portal | Tagged with Access to care, Efficiency, Integrated care, Patient-centered care | No Comments
February 8, 2011
ABSTRACT: Patient satisfaction is receiving greater attention as a result of the rise in pay- for-performance (P4P) and the public release of data from the Hospital Consumer Assesment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey. This paper examines the relationship between nursing and patient satisfaction across 430 hospitals. The nurse work environment was significantly related to all HCAHPS patient satisfaction measures. Additionally, patient-to-nurse workloads were significantly associated with patients’ ratings and recommendation of the hospital to others, and with their satisfaction with the receipt of discharge information. Improving nurses’ work environments, including nurse staffing, may improve the patient experience and quality of care.
Posted in READ Portal, Reports & Papers | Tagged with Evidence-based, Health human resources, Hospital administration, Indicators, Nurses, Nursing, Patient satisfaction, Patient-centered care | No Comments
February 3, 2011
This 2010 white paper from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement presents a synopsis of the results of the eight year Pursuing Perfection Initiative. The goal of the initiative was to determine how healthcare organizations could improve their operations in order to have more efficacious and efficient healthcare systems.
In order to achieve this, the 13 organisations from US and Europe “designed, tested, and implemented changes in strategy, structure, and key processes, supported by IHI faculty and with frequent contact with each other in a collaborative learning model.” The study ended with all participants demonstrating significant improvements in one or more areas of operations, while also learning about the critical factors of optimal healthcare performance.
Posted in READ Portal, Reports & Papers | Tagged with Benchmarking, Efficiency, Evidence-based, Health care reform, Health technology, Hospital administration, Indicators, Patient-centered care, Program evaluation, Quality assessment | No Comments
January 19, 2011
Case studies of three organizations participating in the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Triple Aim initiative shed light on how they are partnering with providers and organizing care to improve the health of a population and patients’ experience of care while lowering—or at least reducing the rate of increase in—the per capita cost of care. The organizations—CareOregon, a nonprofit managed health care plan serving low-income Medicaid enrollees; Genesys Health System, a nonprofit integrated delivery system in Flint, Mich.; and QuadMed, a Wisconsin-based subsidiary of printer Quad/Graphics that develops and manages worksite health clinics and wellness programs—were selected to illustrate diverse approaches. Lessons from these organizations can guide others who wish to undertake or promote transformation in health care delivery.
Posted in READ Portal, Reports & Papers | Tagged with Benchmarking, Economics, Efficiency, Patient-centered care | No Comments
January 17, 2011
This article reviews the concept of “value” as applied to physicians and hospitals. It seeks to identify and measure existing value to patients using benchmarks such as hospital readmission rates and mortality rates to create meaningful data for physicians. Using this information, physicians can make educated choices about how to interact with different at high-risk health groups (i.e. those with increased risk of stroke) to reduce unnecessary readmission. The article argues that teamwork and clear communication among physicians, specialists, and the hospital are necessary to provide the best value to patients.
Posted in Journal Articles, READ Portal | Tagged with Benchmarking, Patient-centered care, Safety | No Comments
January 11, 2011
Apatient-centric approach to Canada’s health care system is not only achievable, but inevitable. At the foundation of this approach is the premise that a significant impact on the health care system will be made by allowing patients to be active participants. As such, patients who want the best health, or the best medical treatment, now have the responsibility to take an active role to seek health information, explore options, contribute and make decisions.
Posted in Journal Articles, READ Portal | Tagged with e-health, Patient-centered care | 1 Comment
January 7, 2011
Case management has emerged to guide the management of comprehensive, integrated treatment plans that reduce these demands on EDs. However, standards don’t yet exist to enable hospitals and social service agencies to develop effective case managers, so each healthcare organization has to reinvent case management. Professionalizing the case management role and case management training programs can provide significant benefits to the healthcare system.
Fortunately, knowledge about human behavior and the importance of modeling best practices after star case managers is proving effective for hospitals and social service organizations.
Posted in Mass Media Articles, READ Portal | Tagged with Benchmarking, Efficiency, Evidence-based, Patient-centered care | 1 Comment
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