Two CHCA Projects Published in Pediatrics®
July 24, 2011
Posted by chcablogadmin in : Academic Medicine, CHCA News, Healthcare Reform, Quality
This summer, Pediatrics® published reports from two CHCA Owner Hospital projects.
The Adult Dilemma
In June, the journal published a research paper originating from a 2010 CHCA R&D project and presented at an Executive Dialogue by Denise Goodman, M.D., of Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago. The paper discussed the “adult dilemma.” Adults With Chronic Health Conditions Originating in Childhood: Inpatient Experience in Children’s Hospitals examined population increases in adult survivors of childhood illness. The paper described disparate experiences based on diagnosis and the contrast between those conditions a well established transition plan (e.g. Cystic Fibrosis) and other conditions.
The bottom line: Children’s hospitals must be proactive in partnering with adult providers to offer the highest quality care to complex patients with childhood diseases. You must evaluate both clinical outcomes and the financial impact of caring for this patient population. You will have to pay attention to resources, training and outcomes, while not endangering your mission of caring for children. And with last year’s expansion of dependent care coverage to age 26, you must determine your readiness for and willingness to adjust your age range to accommodate this growing population and expanded coverage age for dependents.
Reducing Adverse Drug Events
In early July, Pediatrics® published the results of the 2009 Adverse Drug Events Collaborative. In one year, 13 CHCA hospitals standardized medication ordering, decision support, medication administration and patient safety protocols to prevent 12,000 ADEs and saved $14 million.
CHCA and UHC Partner to Solve Provider Productivity Challenges
July 24, 2011
Posted by chcablogadmin in : CHCA News, Manpower & Workforce
Benchmark Physician Practice Data
Through a new partnership with UHC, members may purchase access to a comprehensive physician database for benchmarking to improve clinical effectiveness, productivity and revenue capture. Features include:
- Robust comparative data across major pediatric
subspecialties - Automated processing and online data availability with
consistent reporting - Service mix detail by CPT-code to understand benchmarks
and track performance - Trending and analysis
CHCA has hosted a series of webcasts with Owner Hospital CFOs, COOs and Strategic Planning and Business Development leaders. For more information, contact: Edna Rindner.
add a commentCHCA’s Latest Collaborative Aimed at Improving the Discharge Process
July 24, 2011
Posted by chcablogadmin in : CHCA News, Cost Reduction, Healthcare Reform, Quality
Reduce Waste, Reduce Costs and Impact Throughput
Transitioning from hospital to home or another facility is a big step for patients, their families and hospital staff who care for them. Sub-optimal discharge processes can result in wasted time, wasted bed space, and avoidable returns to the hospital.
Children’s hospitals have the opportunity to work with their peers to improve the discharge process so that it is safe, effective and efficient. Please review the collaborative flyer and pass on to your team if this initiative fits your current patient safety goals. This all-virtual, highly interactive 12-month project can help you improve care across your hospital for a participation fee of $3,500.
Deadline to enroll is August 31, 2011. The project will kick off with a virtual two-day Learning Session, October 19 and 20. For more information, contact Tina.Logsdon@chca.com or Barbara.Spreadbury@chca.com or call 913-262-1436.
add a commentWant Care to be More “Accountable?” Call Your Pediatrician.
July 10, 2011
Posted by chcablogadmin in : Healthcare Reform
by Burl Stamp, FACHE
Stamp & Chase
Burl Stamp
One of the most far-reaching questions facing most children’s hospitals in the wake of health care reform is how to play in the new accountable care world. Unless you are part of a large integrated health system with its own ACO strategy, there is no simple, definitive answer. Get out in front or opportunistically wait and see? Commit to one or partner with several? Or boldly go it alone?
But after the dust settles and newly formed ACOs get down to the hard work of actually reducing cost and achieving better outcomes, they might be wise to take a few lessons from pediatricians and their children’s hospital partners. At the ACO negotiating table, children’s hospitals certainly bring unparalleled clinical expertise and quality in pediatric care. But what might be even more important to a developing ACO is your expertise and solid track record in the very strategies that are being heralded as essential to better managing care, lowering cost and improving outcomes in adult populations.
Developing Medical Homes
While many health care professionals might guess that the development of medical homes is a reaction to current health reform legislation or even the 1990s managed care era, the concept was actually conceived and introduced in 1967 by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The AAP convincingly argued at the time that for children’s health to be optimized, families needed a strong relationship with a personal physician who would offer convenient access and help integrate care regardless of the need or diagnosis.
But even if the term “medical home” had not been coined and the concept articulated by the AAP, doesn’t the way care is managed by a pediatric practice define the way care should be provided for everyone? Convenient, responsive access when you’re sick. Structured, preventative care to keep you well. And a long-term relationship with a health care professional who you turn to for advice for everything from nutrition to serious physical symptoms.
Pediatrics also pioneered strategies to support self-care outside of – but in cooperation with – the physician’s office. Dr. Barton Schmitt’s breakthrough work in the 1970s at the University of Colorado and The Children’s Hospital in Denver (now Children’s Hospital Colorado) is still the definite source for comprehensive, evidence-based telephone triage protocols for children’s health. Hundreds of programs were inspired and shaped by his work, including this author’s launch of the Answer Line at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in 1989. The program today remains one of the most important, far reaching projects I’ve been involved with in my more than 25-year health care career.
Involving Families in Care
While “family-centered care” is seen by many as a contemporary idea to better manage care, especially for chronically ill patients, the concept was developed first in children’s hospitals in the 1970s because caregivers recognized parents deserved to be more fully involved in decision-making and all aspects of their child’s treatment.
Seeing family members as important partners on the care team – rather than as a distraction or burden – makes sense for all patients. In situations where the risk of readmission is high, family member involvement can mean the difference between effective compliance and a trip back to the hospital that will not be fully reimbursed.
Improving Outcomes and Lowering Costs for Chronic Conditions
While much work has been done across a number of diagnoses related to management of chronic conditions, none is any more impressive than the significant gains over the past two decades in asthma care and treatment. What makes the progress in reducing hospitalizations and emergency visits for young asthmatics so promising is that much of the strategy relies on building a sense of personal responsibility and empowerment among patients that dramatically increases the probability of success. “I can control my asthma; it doesn’t have to control me,” is a philosophy that must be replicated more often in adults with controllable, chronic conditions if optimal gains in outcome improvement and cost reductions are going to be achieved.
It is not unusual for successes and breakthroughs in pediatric care to sometimes go unnoticed in the adult medicine world. But in the emerging era of accountable care, ignoring the track record that pediatric professionals have amassed in developing constructive relationships with patients and families that help improve care and reduce cost could be especially short-sighted. Indeed, this expertise should be among pediatrics most important contributions to care that is more accountable.
Editor’s Note: For more on creating a model of accountable care, don’t miss the ACO Update with clinical integration and ACO framework strategy offered by Mary Dale Peterson, M.D., President and CEO of Driscoll Children’s Health Plan in Corpus Christi, TX.
Burl Stamp, FACHE, founded Stamp & Chase in 2003, a St. Louis-based consulting practice that partners with health care organizations nationwide to improve operating results and performance by improving communication. A 20+ year health care veteran, Burl has experience in community hospitals, academic centers and children’s hospitals. He developed the first strategic planning and marketing department at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and went on to lead pediatric service line development for the BJC HealthCare. As former president and CEO of Phoenix Children’s Hospital, he spearheaded development and construction of the first comprehensive, freestanding health care campus in Arizona dedicated to pediatrics. Burl is the author of the book, The Healing Art of Communication, a health care professional’s guide to improving communication, and is a frequent speaker on communication, the patient experience, leadership and marketing strategy in health care organizations. Read more of Burl Stamp’s advice for health care leaders, follow him on Twitter, or contact him at burl@stampandchase.com.
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