Quality and Safety
During the keynote address at the KronosWorks 2012 conference in Las Vegas on Monday, Billy Beane, general manager of Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics, explained to an audience of workforce management professionals how using analytics for hiring new employees is key for business.
Litigation or threatened litigation in the senior care space is an ever-present facet of running a senior care business. An online panel discussion on Nov. 8 addressed ways in which boards of senior care businesses can avoid, or at least manage, legal trouble.
The Everett Clinic and member-owned healthcare co-op Group Health Cooperative announced this week they would strengthen their existing relationship through an alliance that will create an accountable care organization to serve seniors in Group Health's Medicare Advantage plan.
Short-term, contract nurses could be the key to alleviating the projected nationwide nursing shortage, according to a study published in the November issue of Health Affairs. Despite the promising study results, not all industry experts agree that contract nurses are the answer.
Taking care of the elderly is never an easy job, but doing so in a crisis situation such as the double whammy of super storm Sandy and Wednesday's nor'easter is particularly challenging.
Following the devastation of post-tropical storm Sandy last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued blanket waivers of particular requirements that include all hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, hospice and end-stage renal disease facilities in the areas of New York and New Jersey that were strongly affected by the storm.
Instead of admitting certain patients to the hospital, using dedicated observation units in hospitals can often be more efficient, result in shorter lengths-of-stay and lower costs, according to a recent study from Health Affairs.
Increased provider communication leads to decreased readmissions, higher care quality
A study published last week by The Commonwealth Fund found that hospital sustainability efforts could save the healthcare industry up to $5.4 billion over five years and $15 billion over 10 years.
By now, most medical professionals know the hard truth about healthcare delivery in this country: both cost and quality can vary greatly for the same medical procedure from region to region and often times from hospital to hospital in the same market.