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Care Transitions is a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services quality improvement project for Texas' Lower Rio Grande Valley administered through TMF Health Quality Institute. It is a regional, collaborative effort to reduce avoidable hospitalizations by improving patient care transitions. |
| Volume 1, Issue 3 |
January 2009 |
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Care Transitions News is brought to you by
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In the News |
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 Register Now for January Care Transitions Event in Harlingen
Participants in the Lower Rio Grande Valley Care Transitions project should plan now to attend this January 21 event, which will focus on the root causes of rehospitalization in the Valley. Actual claims data provide the basis for discussion and the participant follow-up activities. Participants can earn up to 6 CEUs.
Web Site Feedback Needed
To give you useful and relevant tools for your interventions, the Care Transitions team has relied heavily on electronic communications like this newsletter and the project's Web site. If you've visited the Web site to access resources, we encourage you to take a moment to complete a brief survey. This information is key to future development of the site's contents and ensuring we are successfully supporting your efforts in reducing avoidable rehospitalizations in the Valley.
CMS Distributes Fourth Medicare Health Care Provider Satisfaction Survey
Some 30,000 Medicare providers will receive the Medicare Contractor Provider Satisfaction Survey from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) this month. Providers can complete the survey in about 20 minutes and submit their responses by mail, phone, fax or through a secure Web site.
U.S. Shows Flu Resistance
A common strain of influenza circulating in the United States this winter is resistant to Tamiflu, the most popular drug used to treat it, federal health officials reported recently. (Medscape registration required.)
Word of Mouth and Physician Referrals Still Drive Health Care Provider Choice
Most Americans still rely on word-of-mouth and physician recommendations when selecting health providers, according to a national study released by the Center for Studying Health System Change.
Simple Algorithm Can Identify CKD Risk A simple scoring algorithm may help identify people at risk for the development of clinically significant chronic kidney disease. (Medscape registration required)
U.S. Type 2 Diabetes Patients on the Rise, Increasing Complexity of TreatmentsType 2 diabetes diagnoses are projected to jump to include 50 million Americans in 2050, up from 11 million patients in 2000. Treatment regimens for these patients are including a progressively complex mix of therapies, as shown in a recently released study.
IOM Suggests Benchmarks to Assess Health in U.S.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) is recommending 20 specific health indicators as "yardsticks" to measure the health and well-being of Americans. The IOM is hoping that the indicators will be used to better track how Americans are faring on a variety of measures across U.S. communities and compared to their peers in other countries. The 20 proposed health indicators include life expectancy at birth, infant mortality, chronic disease prevalence, obesity, smoking, nutrition, condom use, serious psychological distress, health care expenditures, insurance coverage, preventable hospitalizations and childhood immunizations.
AHRQ awards $12.8 million in research grants
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality awarded $12.8 million in research grants to 19 quality, efficiency and safety projects that address issues such as reducing waste and inefficiency in health care delivery, improving patient flow, reducing and preventing hospital-acquired infections, implementing technologies like electronic prescribing, care coordination and disaster preparedness.
Secretary Leavitt Announces New Tools to Protect Privacy and Spur HIT Innovation
HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt announced some key privacy principles and a toolkit to guide efforts to harness the potential of new technology and more effective data analysis, while protecting privacy, as part of an electronic health information exchange. |
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Hospital Compare Data Updated
The December 2008 release of Hospital Compare updated the existing quality of care data for providers participating in the Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA) and/or the Reporting Hospital Quality Data for Annual Payment Update (RHQDAPU) program. Hospital Compare now reflects children's asthma care measures, clinical process measures, 30-day risk-standardized mortality measures and other patient survey measures.
Commonwealth Fund Compiles Hospital Quality Data
The Commonwealth Fund launched WhyNotTheBest.org, its own hospital comparison Web site that allows searchers to look at performance across several care categories and benchmarks. The private health research foundation compiled information from CMS' Hospital Compare site and its own national score-card measures to generate the site's comparison data.
Comprehensive Hip Fracture Program Reduces Complication Rates and Mortality
Hip fractures are associated with high morbidity and mortality and are a major cause of health care expenditures in elderly people. This study evaluated the rate of postoperative complications, length of stay and 1-year mortality before and after introduction of a comprehensive multidisciplinary fast-track treatment and care program for hip fracture patients (the optimized program). (Medscape registration required.)
Palliative Care: Better Care, Better Bottom Line
A recently completed large-scale study of palliative care programs shows these consultation programs can save significant sums--up to $300 per patient per day--and provide highly effective and coordinated care. (Medscape registration required.)
Change in Composition of the National Hospital Quality Measure AMI Set
The composition of the Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) Set for one AMI measure common to CMS and The Joint Commission has recently changed, pursuant to changes in the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) practice guidelines for ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction and non-ST segment elevation myocardial infarction and the evolving science for the care of patients with AMI. |
| HOME HEALTH |
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End-of-Life Care: Improving Communication Skills to Enhance Palliative Care
Effective communication among providers forms the basis of this interdisciplinary approach to improving quality of life for patients and their families who are facing life-threatening illness. (Medscape registration required.) |
| SKILLED NURSING FACILITIES |
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CMS Won't Pay for New Pressure Ulcers: How Preventable Are They?
Now that CMS has selected pressure ulcers as a "reasonably preventable" hospital-acquired condition, and therefore not a reimbursable condition, quality improvement teams across the country have heightened prevention strategies in their facilities, some with remarkable success. (Medscape registration required.)
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PHYSICIANS and CLINICS
Survey Says 40% of U.S. Physicians Are Using EHRs
In a National Center for Health Statistics 2008 survey of office-based physicians, 38% reported using full or partial EMR systems, not including billing records, in their office-based practices. About 20.4% reported using a system described as minimally functional and including these features: orders for prescriptions, orders for tests, viewing laboratory or imaging results and clinical notes. Comparable figures from the 2006 survey were 29.2% and 12.4%, respectively.
CMS Posts PQRI Reporting Information and Measures Lists
The names of physicians and other health care professionals who reported quality information under the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) in 2007 is now available online at the CMS Web site. 2009 measures lists are now available; 52 new measures were added.
Physicians' Medicare Payments Increased 1.1%
CMS issued a final rule for the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) for calendar year 2009. The final rule includes policies on other subjects including changes to payment rates for end-stage renal disease facilities, and improvements to enrollment and billing rules. | |
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This material was prepared by TMF Health Quality Institute, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Texas, under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The contents presented do not necessarily reflect CMS policy. 9SOW-TX-CT-09-XX
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