HealthInsight Nevada is one of seven organizations across the nation selected by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to lead the Initiative to Reduce Avoidable Hospitalizations among Nursing Facility Residents. The Initiative will test models to improve the quality of care and help reduce avoidable hospitalizations by 67% in 25 of Nevada's Medicare-Medicaid certified eligible nursing facilities by 2016. Read more... 

In 2010, MountainView Hospital in Las Vegas, Nevada, discovered that the number of falls in at least one of their units was consistently above their established benchmark. Beginning in the last quarter of 2010, the staff at MountainView began implementing a series of interventions to address this issue. Read more...

As part of HealthInsight's work with Medicare, we have been studying Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS), formerly known as PQRI, and have hands on experience with providers in this form of reporting. In our work in the community we have found a knowledge gap in Utah about PQRS reporting. In the last few years many Utah providers were getting a free waiver on PQRS by being a part of a Medicare demonstration project (MCMP), others have not heard about it, and some have let it slip from their radar. Read more...

The use of antipsychotic medications with the elderly and dementia populations can pose serious harm when not ordered, administered, and managed properly. In 2005, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reviewed 17 placebo-controlled trials of four different antipsychotic medications. It was determined that the treatment of behavior disorders in elderly patients, using second generation antipsychotics, is associated with increased mortality. This, and other recent findings, has led to heightened awareness of the potential dangers of these medications in the elderly population. Read more...

As healthcare providers, we need to educate patients and assess their level of understanding. Studies consistently show that 40-80 percent of the medical information patients receive is forgotten immediately and less than half of the information retained is correct. Yet as providers, we believe we teach better than we do. For example, physicians thought 89 percent of patients understood medication side effects yet only 57 percent of patients reported understanding.^[1]One of the easiest ways to close the gap of communication between health care providers and patient is to employ the "teach-back" method.^[2] Teach-back is a way to ensure that you have explained to the patient what they need to know in a manner that the patient understands. Patient understanding is confirmed when they explain it back to you. Read more...