Category Archives for General Interest

How Excellent Patient Care Saves Costs

Patient Safety is defined as “the absence of preventable harm to a patient and reduction of risk of unnecessary harm associated with health care to an acceptable minimum.”  Every hospital in America has a stated mission to prioritize Patient Safety above all else.  “First, do no harm” is the most fundamental principle of any health care service.  Every healthcare organization says it, but are they really doing everything they can to prioritize patient safety?

The first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have one.  But what if you aren’t aware that you have a problem?  Especially in the Critical Access and Community Hospital space, where staff is stretched to non-optimal lengths, how can a facility, not only stay on top of patient safety, but take the time necessary to rigorously evaluate processes and policies to improve their quality of care?

Beyond the moral and ethical obligation to provide the best health care possible, there are clear financial benefits, although often unrecognized, unknown, or undervalued, to doing no harm.  When was the last time you truly evaluated your facilities process of minimizing risk events, and optimizing quality outcomes? Could it be improved upon? Can it make your facility more profitable? The answer is a resounding yes.

Look at your patient fall data to see how much you’ve paid for Cost of Harm falls last year – what else could your hospital have used that money for? Next time you need to tighten your budget, remember cost cuts don’t just come from lowering staffing or standards. You can also save by minimizing how much quality and risk incidents are costing your hospital.

We’ve found this is true amongst our customers. Using ActionCue© CI’s Performance Improvement Plans and the guidance of our Implementation & Support team, one of our customer hospitals reduced falls at their facility by 25% over three years. Based on the Center of Disease Dynamic’s Cost of Harm figures, this saved them almost a million dollars in additional costs.

Another hospital saved more than a million dollars over three years as their CLASBI cases reduced by almost 47%. A third hospital saved more than $80,000 by cutting their rate of VAP cases by 66% in three years of using ActionCue CI.

Improving the quality of care, through proactively tracking and tackling risk and quality incidents can lead to significant savings from the cost of harm avoided – money that can fund additional staff, equipment upgrades and other improvements.

This positive cycle can multiply – every dollar saved by avoiding a Cost of Harm event can be spent on further eliminating Cost of Harm events, leading to more savings from the cost of harm avoided. As the cycle continues, avoidable costs decrease while the quality of care – and your reputation – increases.

This article first appeared in the March 2024 edition of Marketplace, the monthly newsletter of TORCH Management Services, Inc.

National Nursing Week 2020

As we prepare to celebrate National Nurses Week during the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s difficult to find words that adequately express the thanks and gratitude that each of us feels for America’s brave, dedicated, and heroic nurses during this crisis. And the truth is that even a week of honoring our nurses simply doesn’t cut it, because they deserve our respect, thanks, and admiration every day of the year.

For many folks, it’s hard to understand why anyone would want to work in such a physically and emotionally demanding profession, but the truth is that many nurses don’t think of it as a profession, but rather as a calling. That was certainly the case for Florence Nightingale, the British nurse whose experiences on the frontlines and advocacy work back home helped reform medical care and established nursing as an essential position in society.

Each year, National Nurses Week begins on May 6th to celebrate America’s nursing professionals and concludes on May 12th–a date that was symbolically chosen because it is also Florence Nightingale’s birthdate. To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Nightingale’s birth, the World Health Organization declared 2020 the year of the nurse, which is especially appropriate in this time of global health crisis.

Nursing in the modern era

While supportive care roles have always existed in some form throughout recorded history, nursing as we know it today only came into existence in the second half of the 19th century, as Nightingale and others began to recognize the dire need for skilled healthcare providers, both on the war front and at home.

Nightingale, who cared for wounded British soldiers during the Crimean War, witnessed firsthand the pain and suffering her patients experienced due to a lack of proper medical care and trained nurses. Upon returning to Britain, Nightingale embarked on a campaign of reform, publishing training manuals for nurses and advocating for the establishment of nursing schools and standardized care. In 1860, Nightingale and a group of influential benefactors established a nursing school at St. Thomas’ Hospital, where they began training future generations of nurses to implement their vision of increased care, better patient outcomes, and less global suffering.

Through tireless advocacy work, Nightingale and her supporters revolutionized nursing and helped establish the modern system of care. Politicians and citizens alike began to see that nurses are essential to a functional healthcare system. Working in warzones, hospitals, rural clinics, and family offices around the world, nurses provide critically needed care to patients day in and day out.

Today, Covid-19 provides a somber reminder of how crucial nurses and other frontline workers really are.

Ways to show your support

During the Covid-19 Pandemic, there are many ways that you can show your support–not only during National Nurses Week but also year-round.

• Show you care and are thinking of them – As natural caretakers, many nurses and providers feel pressure to shield their friends and families from the stress and trauma that accompanies their work, shouldering the burden alone. During this crisis, reach out to the nurse in your life to let them know you’re thinking of them. Offer to make yourself available if they need someone to listen, and check-in with them weekly or bi-weekly. If they do want to talk about their experiences, remember to listen actively and show them you’re there, especially during hard times.
• Donate PPE – If you or your business have a stockpile of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as N-95 masks, respirators, or face shields, consider donating it to a local hospital or through an online donation portal. By helping provide essential PPE, we can help keep our nurses and other frontline workers healthy.
• FLATTEN THE CURVE! – One of the biggest ways we can thank our nurses is by following the guidance of trusted public health officials. Social distancing, frequent hand washing, and minimizing unnecessary trips outside of your home will help slow the spread of the virus and prevent the healthcare system from becoming overwhelmed. By abiding by the CDC-recommended best practices, every one of us can help save the lives of patients as well as healthcare workers.
• Donate to the American Nurses Foundation Coronavirus Response Fund– If you would like to give a financial gift, considering donating to the Covid Response Fund for Nurses, which is run by the American Nurses Foundation, an official partner of the American Nurses Association. This fund benefits nurses in a variety of ways, from offering direct financial relief to funding access to mental health care professionals during this time of crisis.

Today, nurses and other healthcare workers are more united than ever in the face of Covid-19. Simply put, never in our lifetime has there been a greater unified effort to confront an illness on frontlines around the world. Together, let’s thank our nursing professionals and continue the crucial advocacy work needed to ensure that our frontline workers have the resources they need to stay safe.

3 Reasons Why “Designed by Clinicians” is Not Going to Save Healthcare IT

The Equifax Data Breach – What You should do to Protect Yourself!

This advice is from Prista’s partner and advisor for HIPAA Compliance, Third Rock.  Considering the vast number of individuals impacted by this breach event, and the seriousness of the issue, we thought it would be good to share this.  Please consider these steps for your own effort.  You can also see this article from their current newsletter, find other resources and subscribe to their newsletter here.

If you would like more insight or help with your organization’s HIPAA Privacy and Security compliance, you can direct any questions or follow-up to Robert Felps at Third Rock, via email or call 512-310-0020.

Stealing headlines from Hurricane Irma was the revelation that Equifax experienced a major data breach during the summer.  Equifax is one of the “big three” credit monitoring services and therefore the data they collect on each of us is broad and deep.  They estimate that data for 143 million people –  nearly half the population of the United States – has been stolen!

What does this breach mean for you?  Your financial history and ability to buy a home, new car, or even get healthcare could be at stake.  Here are recommended steps to protect you and your family.

1. Be skeptical! Equifax is looking out for itself, not you!  They will fight to survive this fiasco, spending the minimum required. Don’t give away your rights – read all documents carefully before signing. Don’t rush to sign any agreements. The aftermath of the breach will play out over months, not hours, and new information will emerge every week.
2. Be cautious! This breach is so large, scammers will take advantage of it.  Be wary of offers to sign up for credit monitoring services and giving out any additional personal information!  Validate the authenticity of any such services. Research these services because many do not provide the protection you need or believe you will receive.
3. Assume your data has been stolen, even if Equifax says your data has not been stolen! Breaches tend to grow over time because companies often under-report to minimize the bad publicity. As the company investigates the breach, they are also likely to uncover more theft that wasn’t obvious at the beginning of the investigation. For instance, on Tuesday of this week, it was publicized that EquiFax suffered additional breaches this year before this major breach.
4. Check the Equifax website set up to inform people if their data was stolen. The link to the site is  equifaxsecurity2017.com.  Questions abound about whether the website provides accurate responses or not!  Remember, be skeptical!
5. Keep all your records! Record all your interactions with Equifax. Ask for email confirmations after phone conversations. Save email as PDFs.  Any costs you incur, get receipts and put them in a specific location or folder.
6. Check your credit report at; https://www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action. This is a free service and you can get one free report a year from each credit reporting service.  I recommend getting one report every 4 months from a different service so you can maintain a fairly regular status of your credit information.
7. Freeze your Credit – this is your last option and prevents companies from checking your credit score in an effort to get additional credit. This is not something you should do without evaluating your circumstances.  If you are planning to purchase a new car, take out a loan, or get a new credit card, you should evaluate your options.