AHA Issues Guide for Improving the Patient Experience through the Physical Environment

One way for hospitals to improve patient satisfaction is to focus on their physical environment, according to a new guide by the AHA's Hospitals in Pursuit of Excellence initiative and American Society for Healthcare Engineering. Read More    

Hospitals Eye Community Health Workers to Cultivate Patients' Successes

Donnie Missouri, 58, doesn't have medical training. He started his health career in the linens department in Johns Hopkins Hospital. Read More

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Federal Agency Offers $15 Million to Support Aging In Place

In yet another move signaling the federal government's intention to increase home health services, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is making $15 million available to test a new model to help seniors age in place. Read More    

States Find It Hard and Expensive to Coordinate Care for Duals

States say it's harder and more expensive than initially predicted to coordinate care for the roughly 9 million people who are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid. Read More  

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Location, Location, Location May Impact Hospital Readmission Rates

The socio-economic status of patients in a given community may explain some of the variation in hospital 30-day readmission rates. Read More

At the Hospital, Better Responses to Those Beeping Alarms

In hospitals, alarms on patient-monitoring devices create a cacophony of noise day and night-beeping, pinging and ringing so often that doctors and nurses ignore them, turn them off or just stop hearing them. Read More

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During the introduction for Sean Muldoon, MD the Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Kindred Healthcare’s Hospital Division, the audience got a hint of the difficulty involved when it was noted that Muldoon was given the choice of solving world hunger or getting three key metrics measured the same way in all Kindred facilities. Solving world hunger, it was noted, would be the easier task.

 

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When it comes to improving the American healthcare system to provide higher quality care at lower cost, we must be mindful of how we are currently failing the patient, and how to remedy that, not place all of our focus on system failure. By improving the care given to the patient, improvement in the system will follow. So says Pam Duncan, PhD, PT, FAPTA, FAHA, Wake Forest Baptist Health, who addressed the group of attendees this morning at the 2014 Kindred Clinical Impact Symposium: Clinical Excellence in the Care of the Stroke Patient Across the Continuum.

 

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Karen Schulkin, a nurse with Professional Healthcare at Home, an affiliate of Kindred at Home, has been named a Top 10 Finalist for the 2014 Home Care & Hospice Nurse of the Year Award presented by the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC).

Annually, NAHC promotes a nationwide recognition campaign that asks its members, affiliates and the public to help choose a top home care and hospice nurse from every state. NAHC recognizes nurses for providing exceptional care, reducing hospital readmissions and making a difference in patients’ lives. A public vote determines the winning nurse from the top 10 finalists featured on their website.

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On April 1, 2014, the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 was signed into law by President Obama. Most commonly, this legislation is known for providing a one-year patch to the physician Medicare sustainable growth rate – otherwise known as the ‘doc fix’ – but it also includes other important provisions including the extension of the Part B Therapy Cap exceptions process and the establishment of a value-based purchasing (VBP) program for skilled nursing facilities.

In more common terms, the legislation creates hospital readmission reduction program for all patients cared for in nursing centers nationwide. In order to incentivize improvement in preventable admissions to short term hospitals, the legislation establishes an incentive pool for high performers.

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Just as there are different kinds of patients, there are different kinds of hospitals. Kindred Transitional Care Hospitals provide a wide range of services to help patients with complex medical issues who need additional recovery time after a stay at a traditional hospital. While every patient receives individualized care from a team of healthcare professionals, our goal is for each person to reach the highest level of recovery before discharge.

With our Direct Admit Program, physicians can admit medically complex patients from short-term acute care hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health and other service providers directly to a Kindred Hospital. We work directly with physicians to make sure their patients have a smooth transition into our hospitals and the highest level of care continuity to prevent future readmissions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYp9UW5pTwI

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What are care management’s best practices at this early stage in its existence? This question was answered by William Mills, MD, Chief Medical Officer for Kindred at Home and Vice President of Medical Affairs for Kindred’s new Division of Care Management, during a break-out session at Kindred’s Fifth Annual Clinical Impact Symposium.

There’s no doubt that readmissions to acute care hospitals are costing the healthcare system a lot of money, and the patients who cost the system the most might fit a profile like this:

Patients like this typically see anywhere from two to ten doctors regularly. They have no home support, so when a crisis arises, 911 is called and the patient is taken to the emergency room, which leads to a hospital stay eight out of ten times, Dr. Mills said. Rehabilitation and a long-term care stay follow, then home care and then the cycle recurs.

For patients like this, wouldn’t it make more sense to deliver care in the home setting?

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Did you know that a pharmacist invented Coca Cola? This was just one interesting fact divulged by Kindred Hospital Division Vice President of Pharmacy James Poullard, who presented this afternoon at Kindred’s Fifth Annual Clinical Impact Symposium.

For Coke lovers, this fact makes pharmacists critical. But more importantly, pharmacists play a crucial role in effective care transitions.

Pharmacy – the science and technique of preparing and dispensing drugs and medicines – has undergone a transformation over the years, according to Poullard.

“We’ve gone from pouring sodas and mixing elixirs to now being the medication expert in retail outlets, and in the inpatient arena,” he said. “There are now post-graduate residency programs and we’ve become an integral part of the patient care team.”

And pharmacists have their work cut out for them.

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