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In This Issue
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Care Coordination
- Best Practices: Improving Care Transitions and Coordination for Frequent ED Users
- Innovations: Scheduling Follow-Up Appoints Through the ED
- Perspectives: NQF Endorsed Practices and Quality Measures Support Coordinated Healthcare
- Focus on Learning Network II: Westmoreland Hospital
Care Coordination
This issue of the Urgent Matters E-Newsletter highlights a variety of methods and tools used to coordinate care in the emergency department (ED). The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality defines care coordination as the organization of patient care activities for the purpose of facilitating appropriate delivery of health services. Organizing care involves the marshalling of personnel and other resources needed to carry out all required patient care activities, and is often managed by the exchange of information among participants responsible for different aspects of care. Coordination care in the ED presents some unique barriers as patients may be receiving care from multiple providers in a number of facilities.
Frequent users of the ED are often in need of additional medical and social resources that ED staff are not able to give. The Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield, California has developed a program that focuses in improving care transitions and coordination for frequent ED users;
Would you like to be able to schedule a clinic follow up visit for your patients before they leave the ED? The University of California, San Diego has implemented an Internet-based, electronic referral system to ensure patients discharged form the ED have access to follow-up appoints; and
This issue’s Perspectives article features Helen Burstin, MD, MPH, senior vice president for performance measures at the National Quality Forum and highlights the groundbreaking work the NQF is doing in care coordination.
Best Practices
Improving Care Transitions and Coordination for Frequent ED Users
A principle distinction between primary care clinicians and emergency department (ED) clinicians is that the latter do not want to see their patients again. It’s not callous, it’s caring, because repeated trips to the ED indicate a curable or manageable condition is going unattended — causing discomfort and possible long-term harm to the patient. Read More >>
Innovations
Scheduling Follow-Up Appointments Through the ED
They say you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. But does that adage hold true in the arena of post- emergency department (ED) follow-up care? If an ED was to make sure patients without medical homes who needed post-discharge treatment left the hospital with an appointment in hand, would patients show up as scheduled? Read More >>
Perspectives
NQF Endorsed Practices and Quality Measures Support Coordinated Healthcare
As the number of healthcare professionals, care settings, and treatments involved in a patient’s care has increased, the coordination of care has become both more difficult and more vital. Poorly coordinated care often results in wasted healthcare dollars and worse care for patients. The average patient is passed between doctors approximately 15 times during a single five-day hospitalization, and taxpayers spend at least $15 billion each year treating Medicare patients who, partly due to poor coordination, get worse after discharge and must be readmitted. Read More >>
Focus on Urgent Matters Learning Network II
Westmoreland Hospital is part of a three hospital health system located in Western Pennsylvania. Patient flow used to be a chronic issue that plagued the hospital emergency department (ED). “We were constantly in crisis mode and often over capacity,” said Mary Ann Singley, MSN, vice president of clinical services, Excela Westmoreland, and project director for the Westmoreland Urgent Matters team. Westmoreland Hospital leadership was concerned about patient safety, the needs of the community, and financial issues related to patient flow and examining internal processes when they learned about Urgent Matters Learning Network II (LNII). “We were developing a hospital-wide approach for tackling patient flow and Urgent Matters LNII was perfect for our needs,” said Singley. Read More >>
