Search Tag: patient care

2015 18 Aug

One of the most common patient complaints about hospitals is the noise with multiple monitors, paging systems, wheelchairs, gurneys and squeaking carts all making a good night’s sleep impossible. University of Michigan Health System (UMHS) consisting of hospitals and clinics in south east Michigan and the University of Michigan Medical School, is...Read more

2015 19 Nov

Putting patients at the centre of health services is one of the most important factors shaping future EU health systems. This year’s European Hospital Conference presents an important occasion to debate the patient’s role and to share experience on how Europe’s hospitals can enable patients to be active partners in the care delivery process. This conference...Read more

2015 27 Jul

Athenahealth's new secure text messaging service "athenaText" makes coordination within care teams easier and faster — which contributes to improved patient care. Integrated with athenahealth’s cloud-based EHR platform, athenaText is available free to the more than one million healthcare professionals on the athenahealth network. The service is accessible...Read more

2015 27 Jul

According to an article published in USA Today, hospitals are turning toward patients and their family members for suggestions to improve quality of care.  A number of hospitals in the Nashville, Tennessee, area are trying to ensure their patients' voice is part of their planning efforts. For this purpose they have established LifePoint Health, a...Read more

2015 18 Jul

The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) has recently updated its scope and standards for critical nursing practice. The new guidelines describe and measure the expected level of practice and professional performance for acute and critical care registered nurses and specifie how acute and critical care nursing contributes to a patient-...Read more

2015 08 Jul

Placebos have been used to ease pain and other symptoms for centuries and are used in clinical trials as controls for testing new drug therapies. Citing growing evidence that placebo effects can dramatically enhance the effectiveness of pharmaceutical therapies, a “Perspectives” article in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) proposes a central...Read more

2015 03 Jul

Rice Memorial Hospital in Wilmar, Minnesota in the United States is all set to implement a new integrated caring approach to intensive care through the use of acuity-adaptable rooms that will be incorporated with a medical and surgical unit that is capable of adjusting to either a general patient or an intensive care patient.  It is felt that this...Read more

2015 19 Jun

Leaders at Intermountain Healthcare (Salt Lake City, Utah) discussed their organisation's efforts in population health hotspotting during a recent HealthLeaders Media LIVE event. Intermountain has made a concerted effort — from use of analytics to clinical redesign — to improve patient care and reduce high utilisation. In 2011, a New Yorker article...Read more

2015 11 Jun

The Indiana University Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science has developed a novel laboratory that employs the tools of implementation science to improve population health, lower costs of delivery and developing transformational leaders in healthcare. A paper on the laboratory has been published in Zeitschrift für Evidenz, Fortbildung...Read more

2015 02 Jun

Morten Elbæk Petersen is the CEO of the innovative Danish public health portal sundhed.dk. Launched in 2002 for citizens and health professionals and the largest patient portal in Europe, the site won Petersen the HIMSS Europe eHealth Leadership Award this year. Today, twenty per cent of the Danish population uses the portal every month and use is...Read more

2015 01 Jun

Conflict is inevitable in any activity and can entail massive costs. It results in lost productivity and collaboration, and in healthcare, it results in worsened patient outcomes. A report, entitled "Understanding the Cost of Conflict and an Approach to Conflict-Management Design" and published in Journal of the American College of Radiology , discusses...Read more

2015 19 May

The British Institute of Radiology Statement Many hospitals already run six day diagnostic imaging services and offer complex imaging services in a 24 hour on-call capacity. The BIR agrees that, where appropriate, seven day working would be in the best interests of patients, but this is dependant on appropriate funding to support a multi-disciplinary...Read more

2015 09 May

In today's healthcare, insurance companies hold a dominating position with respect to medical decisions about patient care. Dr Linda Girgis, MD, FAFFP and a family physician in South River, New Jersey highlights the dilemma faced by doctors and patients alike when it comes to taking decisions about treatment options. A patient physically unable...Read more

2015 08 May

At WoHIT 2015, Agfa HealthCare "Envisions the Future of Care", enhancing collaboration, interoperability and mobility. Enterprise Imaging and Portal offer cost-effective, long-term solutions that align with EHR platform strategy Solutions form a pathway to integrated care, across departments, enterprises and regions, and beyond. They provide physicians...Read more

2015 05 May

Becker’s Hospital Review recently published tips on how hospitals in the U.S. could improve their Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey results. A standardised survey consisting of multiple choice questions, the advice can be applied in hospitals all over the world to help improve care quality. Here’s a...Read more

2015 29 Apr

Understanding every moment of the patient and family experience in their journeys through a healthcare system — from parking in the hospital garage to being treated in the ICU — is key to achieving patient-centred care. This is the philosophy behind a novel quality improvement programme implemented at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)....Read more

2015 20 Apr

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have recently approved two new Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) measures and 16 non-PQRS measures developed by the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) and Anesthesia Quality Institute (AQI). The new 36 reporting measures are expected to empower physician anaesthesiologists when...Read more

2015 27 Mar

Enterprise Imaging becomes central to advancing value-based care strategies Efficient access to patient-centric clinical data via multiple innovative advancements to its suites of technologies   Agfa HealthCare's Enterprise Imaging suite addresses clinical and economic data demands as hospitals and health systems seek to realise value in all care...Read more

2015 16 Mar

Nationwide Children’s Hospital has received NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Recognition for using evidence-based, patient-centred processes that focus on highly coordinated care and long-term, participative relationships the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) announced. Nationwide Children’s achieved Level 3 standards, the highest...Read more

2015 03 Mar

Medical errors occur often and potentially harm patients. For example, in intensive care units (ICUs), adverse events are common, often owing to failures to carry out intended treatment correctly. This study aimed to test the effectiveness of checklists for emergency procedures on medical staff performance in intensive care crises. Researchers found...Read more

2015 28 Feb

Medical students learning to relate to patients often interact with “standardised patients” portrayed by healthy people who are trained to act like real patients. The drawback of that type of interaction is that it is relatively expensive, and students do not always get to experience the range of patient personalities. Computer-based virtual patients...Read more

2015 17 Feb

Coronary patients in Europe are not meeting lifestyle, therapeutic and risk factor targets after hospitalisation A new approach to the secondary prevention of coronary disease is called for The large majority of coronary patients in Europe are failing to achieve their lifestyle, risk factor and therapeutic targets as set out in the latest prevention...Read more

2015 11 Feb

A new study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal shows that shorter duty hours for medical residents, although slightly better for residents themselves, may result in worse patient care. The finding is based on a randomised trial assessing resident duty hour schedules in the intensive care unit (ICU). "Our findings that overnight...Read more

2015 02 Feb

Quality is a multifaceted endeavour, which is very important and complex in medical imaging. Engaging many different individuals in the radiology department is necessary to improve quality and service for patients. A recent study published in the Canadian Association of Radiologists Journal aimed to assess three new quality initiatives in radiology...Read more

2015 17 Jan

Lexmark International, Inc. has announced its acquisition of Toronto-based medical imaging company Claron Technology, Inc. for about $37 million in cash. Claron is a leading provider of medical image viewing, distribution, sharing and collaboration software technology. Claron's medical image viewing platform offers web-based access to patient imaging...Read more

2014 30 Dec

Collaboration between The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) and the European Society of Thoracic Surgery (ESTS) is expected to help improve the quality of patient care by linking outcomes data on chest procedures, beginning with lung cancer surgery. A draft manuscript and data have already been circulated and the outcomes are expected to be presented...Read more

2014 08 Nov

Key Points • Having clinicians involved in management improves outcomes for patients and saves money. • Partnerships between clinicians, professional organisations and managers has allowed spread of innovation at scale in Ireland. • Clinicians and managers are together the stewards of healthcare. • “what’s well-made endures, and shines on”....Read more

2014 01 Sep

Medtronic Inc. announced this week that it has acquired NGC Medical S.p.A. (NGC), a privately-held Italian company. The company was acquired for $350 million. Medtronic already owned 30% of NGC before this acquisition. With this new partnership, NGC will serve as the Managed Services arm for Medtronic's Hospital Solutions business. Medtronic is committed...Read more

2014 11 Aug

Hospital admission rates for patients with heart failure (HF) presenting for emergency department (ED) care vary, and the implications of direct discharge home from the ED are unknown. There is a substantial economic burden of HF admissions and a focus on readmissions as a quality of care measure. However, there is little appreciation of the pitfalls...Read more

2014 05 Aug

Health technology, which lets physicians access real-time data critical in making care decisions, can do a lot towards improving quality of care. As such, technology can be expensive for hospitals. This question then arises: Is it worth the cost? Generally, for health systems, getting doctors' support to cut costs is always a big challenge. "Traditionally...Read more