In light of The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) quickly approaching October 1 deadline to no longer pay for hospital-acquired conditions (or Never Events), Studer Group, a preeminent outcomes firm assisting healthcare organizations to attain and sustain high performance results, is offering specific tips and tactics to healthcare organizations to eliminate the identified 11 medical errors. These Never Events, such as patient falls, bed sores and infections, are defined by CMS as preventable and are no longer reimbursable. The cost savings to CMS will be in the tens of millions of dollars, but this same financial reduction will dramatically impact the already thin finances of US hospitals.
In a continual effort to create a culture of always, where individuals do the right thing for the patient every time, Studer Group has created four short videos on Never Events. All four are free to the public and accessible on the Studer Group Web site. The first video provides an overview of Never Events and specific tactics that should be implemented to prevent them. The other three videos are focused on how to prevent the most prevalent and costly of these conditions: falls, pressure ulcers and infections. The videos are designed to transform the culture of a healthcare organization into an efficient, cost-effective, and high performing work place, successful in providing improved patient care.
“Studer Group is extremely committed to eliminating these medical errors and helping healthcare organizations become progressive by tightening up assessments, documentation, and coding, and effectively communicating and managing tactics that will assist in eliminating Never Events,” said Quint Studer, founder and CEO of Studer Group. “Because of the size of Studer Group’s national lab, we have ideas, tactics and the passion to help bring the numbers down to zero in an aggressive mobilization to share these with the healthcare industry.”
CMS views the change in reimbursement as a major step forward in their shift toward value-based purchasing, a philosophy of paying hospitals based on their performance on certain measures rather than the amount of service provided. According to CMS, each year more than 650,000 patients experience one of these preventable errors, leading to needless pain, injury and even death. Some of these events, such as an infection after having a coronary artery bypass graft, can cost as much as $300,000 to treat. That’s the same amount hospitals will no longer receive if the event occurs during a patient’s stay.
Many healthcare organizations are already working with Studer Group to prevent Never Events and have been utilizing one of Studer Group’s tactics, hourly rounding. The tactics taught in hourly rounding have resulted in extremely positive outcomes and been proven to dramatically improve patients’ experiences in the hospital. In fact, hourly rounding is proven to impact two of the 11 Never Events, cutting patient falls by 50 percent and reducing pressure ulcers by 14 percent.
Studer Group’s hourly rounding and Never Event videos are just two examples of tactics that align with Studer Group’s mission to make healthcare a better place for employees to work, physicians to practice medicine, and patients to receive care. The Never Event videos are the newest addition to Studer Group’s arsenal of healthcare resources. Studer Group also offers coaching for Never Events (including specialty coaches on site at healthcare organizations), national speakers on how to prevent Never Events, video resources and webinars on Never Events, and Never Events educational sessions. Studer Group will highlight partner healthcare organizations that have excelled in providing exceptional patient care at their annual “What’s Right in Health Care” conference in Chicago in 2009. Next year’s theme is “Accountability: How Always Leads to Never.”
To view the free videos, familiarize yourself with the 11 hospital-acquired conditions and review the latest evidence on how to prevent them, visit www.studergroup.com/never. The Web site will be updated as new information is made available.
About Studer Group
Studer Group is an outcomes firm that implements evidence-based leadership systems that help hundreds of healthcare organizations attain and sustain outstanding results. Studer Group is devoted to teaching evidence-based tools and tactics that healthcare organizations can immediately use to create and sustain outcomes in clinical, operational and service excellence. www.studergroup.com
For additional information about Studer Group, please contact: Rebecca Rosfeld Levenson & Brinker Public Relations (o) 214-932-6096 (c) 469-995-4977 [email protected]
SOURCE: Studer Group
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