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April 2010: New report from the Pennsylvania School of Nursing finds that minimum Nurse to Patient Ratios as saving patient lives. Read Press Release
Feb 2010: CDC Posts Maps and Abstracts for how the states plan to spend the Healthcare-Associated Infections: Recovery Act Monies. View Map and Abstracts View KY Data
Feb 2010:
CDC Releases
Statement Which Supports Public
Reporting of Hospital Acquired Infections
Read News Release
Dec 2009: HW USA posts model legislation on Public Reporting of Healthcare Acquired Infections. View Sample Statue (Updated Feb 6, 2010)
Nov 2009: GAO Released Nursing Home Report. 10 Worst are in Kentucky. View Report Release
Oct 2009: New Mexico MRSA Collaborative reports a 48% reduction in hospital associated MRSA with the implementation of active surveillance cultures and appropriate MRSA control measures for MRSA positive patients. View News Release
Sept 2009: Joint Commission responds to HW USA's question regarding their policy of public reporting of healthcare acquired infections. View Response
Aug 2009: CDC Releases Cost Estimates of HAI. A Range of Annual Total Costs using CPI for Inpatient Hospital Services of $35.7 to 45.0 Billion Dollars was reported. Read Report
July 2009: Courier Journal agrees with HW USA's position on public reporting of HAI and MRSA. View Op Ed from CJ Editor (posted with permission of the CJ)
July 2009: Expert Organizations (APIC, SHEA, IDSA & CSTE) officially support public reporting of hospital acquired infections. View Support Letter View Public Reporting of HAI Section in HR 3200
July, 2009: Healthcare acquired infections planning template released from the CDC to the States. Download Template
June, 2009: The New Yorker -- "The Cost Conundrum"
A battle for the soul of healthcare. Is conflict of interest and for
profit medicine the reason for the almost three fold increase in costs
between McAllen, TX and Grand Junction, CO -- Read and decide.
View News Article
April, 2009: Fox News covers the new Colorado Law on healthcare transparency Shopping for your doctor could save your life
Jan, 2009: Courier Journal. Discussion and Coverage of HB 67 which requires reporting of Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI) and MRSA. View News Article View Bill - HB67
Jan, 2009: The US Dept of Health and Human Services has release a draft action plan to prevent healthcare-associated infections. http://www.hhs.gov/ophs/initiatives/hai/draft-hai-plan-01062009.pdf
Several interesting statements are contained in this
report:
"Another approach CMS has adopted as it transforms the Medicare program from
a passive payer towards the goal of being an active purchaser of higher
quality, more efficient health care is hospital pay-for-reporting."
"Public reporting enhances accountability in healthcare by increasing the
transparency of quality data. Public reporting is designed to create both
“indirect” financial and non-financial incentives to improve quality of
care. Indirect financial incentives result when pubic reporting drives
patients’ choices and, therefore, market share. Non-financial incentives
include publicizing performance, reputations, competition, motivation,
accountability, and public, recognition."
Nov 2008: Presentations and PowerPoints for the 2008 Conference for Healthcare Transparency and Patient Advocacy can be viewed at: View Presentations
Nov 2008: The Joint Commission has been designated by CMS to be a "deeming" authority for accrediting Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASC). As a condition, the Joint Commission is Required to provide the most recent accreditation survey of the facility to CMS. View The Federal Register See Related HW USA News Letter
Nov, 2008: Lexington Herald Leader covers the 2008 Conference on Healthcare Transparency and Patient Advocacy. View Report
Sept, 2008: A new GAO report on HAI was released (see enclosure) the report's summery states that reporting and definitions are standardized through the National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance (NNIS) system but questions if every hospital's can be relied upon to produce accurate data. View Report
Sept, 2008: A recent article in the Fort-Worth Star Telegram places the spot light again on Joint Commission Accreditation. "Value of hospital accreditations under review" View Article This follows other reports concerning hospitals in the VA System (Salisbury NC View Article and Marion, ILL View Article ) along with the American Nurses Association Lawsuit against the Dept of Health and Human Services regarding inadequate staffing at facilities. View News Release
June, 2008: Massachusetts Medicaid announced it will no longer pay for preventable hospital errors. See Boston Globe Article
June 14, 2008: American Nurses Association releases "Safe Staffing" poll results of over 10,000 nurses -- See Detailed Results Result highlights include:
· 73% of nurses asked don't believe the staffing on their unit or shift is
sufficient.
· 59.8% of those asked said they knew of someone who left direct care
nursing due to concerns about safe staffing.
· 48.2% would not feel confident having someone close to them receiving care
in the facility where they work.
· 36% rarely or never take their full meal break.
June 5, 2008: New York State Medicaid announced it will no longer pay for 14 hospital acquired adverse events and never events. See Announcement
May 15, 2008:
Recently posted on
Hospital Compare
website is the
National data reporting that 60% of patients always receive help as soon as
they wanted and that 68% reported that here room and bathroom were "always"
clean has been touted in some media as a good performance.
However, what happened to the other 40% who did not report getting immediate
help. This seems unacceptable when Medicare regulations demand immediate
availability of an RN to care for patients.
See Medicare Regulation Section 482.23(b)
In addition, clean rooms and bathrooms not reported by 38% of patients.
The severe problem the US is having with MRSA and Multiple Resistant Drug
Organisms in Hospitals makes the lack of cleanliness reported by patients
unacceptable.
April 7, 2008: Summary of an article on who pays for the cost of medical errors by Michelle Mello, PhD et.al. by the Commonwealth Fund: "On average, hospitals externalized 78 percent of the costs of all injuries and 70 percent of the costs of negligent injuries." "On average, hospitals absorbed $238 of injury-related costs for every patient admitted that year. They externalized, or passed on, $1,775 in injury-related costs per admission." "While adverse events result in substantial costs, hospitals bear only a small proportion of these costs and therefore have few financial incentives to invest in patient safety interventions." Payment reforms may be the answer. Read Summary
March 24, 2007: Estimated that 62 Million CT Scans are performed
annually in the United States and may be responsible for 1.5% to 2.0% of all
cancers.
Read NEJM Article.
To obtain an estimate of radiation dosage for specific X-Ray and CT Scan
studies go to:
American Imaging Management
March 14, 2008: Testimony in the Kentucky Senate Health and Welfare Committee indicated that there were not enough hospital beds to separate MRSA carriers from other patients. Why then is the Certificate of Need preventing hospital construction. Read the Comments
Feb. 25, 2008: Bill for Mandatory Public Reporting of Healthcare Acquired Infections and Multiresistant Drug Organisms has been filed in the Kentucky Senate by Senator Vernie McGaha. http://www.lrc.ky.gov/record/08RS/SB183/bill.doc
Marion IL, Veterans Administration Hospital has been found to have severe
problems dating back to 2006 and received the Gold Seal of Approval from the
Joint Commission in 2007. Read More:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,326187,00.html
http://www.qualitycheck.org/qualityreport.aspx?hcoid=2869
Nov 27, 2007: Evidence from California shows an increase in the number of Licensed RNs associated with the passage of minimum registered nurse to patient ratios and an increase in graduates from nursing programs. (Download report Spetz, 2007). Orsolini-Hain and Malone (Policy, Politics and Nursing Practice, 2007 p 165 ) stated: "Although other reasons may partly explain this increase, stabilizing nurse-patient ratios may actually help retain experienced nurses by creating a more realistic workload." These authors also concluded that simply training more nurses will not solve the problem and that mandatory nurse-patient ratios should be implemented.
Nov 13, 2007: The United States ranks 41 out of 171 countries in material mortality having a rate of 1 in 4,800. This is far higher than the rate of 1 in 16,400 found in the top 10 European and industrialized nations. The Lancet Yahoo News
Oct 22, 2007: Kentucky's citations of nursing homes is half the national average. Questions regarding lack of enforcement raised. Lexington Herald Leader
Oct 2007: Dr John Van Arsdall II, MD, MS discusses the role of Hospitalists or physicians who work for and solely admit and take care of patients in the hospital. A new hospital dynamic has been created which prevents effective physician action (Editorial Journal of the Kentucky Medical Association -- October 2007 ).
"Hospitals can make or break consultants. This can be especially true when under the direct influence of hospitals themselves. Hospitals may hold financials overhead by controlling directly the referrals to hospitalists for their own primary care groups. The hospitalists may also be influenced by direct salaries from these hospitals. The hospitalists plays a much larger role in who works and who doesn't, thus having a huge effect on the medical food chain."
The above dynamics is why conditions in Hospitals may not be corrected internally.
Oct 1, 2007: Kentucky and West Virginia -- Hundreds of nurses
are on strike at Appalachian Regional Hospitals over understaffing and
patient safety concerns.
Newspaper
Report
Newspaper Report
Aug 1, 2007: Health Watch USA received certification as a Community Leader for Healthcare Transparency by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Dept. Health and Human Resources. View Certificate
June 13, 2007:
Commonwealth Fund Releases State Score
Card. Kentucky is 45th in the United States falling behind in access,
quality and cost.
Press Release
Executive Summary
Full Report
May 31, 2007: Report by the Danville, VA Register and Bee states that
the Joint Commission does not release complete results and that "nurse to
patient ratio is not one of the areas scored".
Read Hospital Unveils Evaluation Blog:
http://danvilleregional.blogspot.com/
April 20, 2007: Salisbury, NC the Veterans
Administration Hospital has received the Joint
Commission's "Gold Seal of Approval" but is now accused of poor patient
care and suspicious deaths.
AP Article
Charolett Observer
Charolett Observer
& Event Time Line
April 18, 2007: Kentucky has not enacted regulations to allow the development of quality assurance standards for facilities KRS216B.155(1), to develop patient care needs KRS216B.160, or to protect health care workers from retaliation that report problems and safety issues KRS 216B.165.
April 6, 2007: Newly Release Policy Report on Consumer Driven Health Care --
Transparency of Quality Costs, Value and Certificate of Need.
Word Count 5915.
Download PDF 570 K
March 2007: Kentucky passes new legislation, A statue relating to large group health benefit plans. Amend KRS 304.17A-846 to direct health insurers to provide certain information to large group health benefit plans upon request of the plans; require the insurer to provide additional utilization data to help the employer measure costs in certain areas; provide under certain circumstances that nonpublic personal health information can be provided to large group health benefit plans in compliance with the Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. View SB 175
Feb 23, 2007 Mark Botti from the US Department of
Justice, Antitrust Division, testifies before the Georgia Legislature on
the impact of the certificate of need ( CON )on healthcare markets
--
Read Full Report.
Feb 2007: Legislation Filed in Washington State Senate to require minimum nursing staffing ratios. View Proposed Legislation
Feb 2007:
Dept. Health and Human Services' Secretary Mike
Leavitt calls for support of the four "cornerstone" actions of
the recent Presidential Executive Order calling for the – interoperable
health IT; transparency of quality; transparency of price; and
incentives for high-value health care:
Letter Calling For Support
Document of Supporting Industries
Dec.
30, 2006: Dr. Kevin Kavanagh (picture left) receives the
key to the City of Nicholasville, from Mayor John Martin, for his work
to promote health care in Jessamine County.
News
Release Dec 30, 2006
Sept 16, 2006: The Kentucky Medical Association passed without incident or debate a provision to repeal Kentucky's Certificate of Need Law. Learn More About the Certificate of Need
July 2, 2006: KY Governor's Office Using Fuzzy Math to Determine Hospital Cost Effectiveness. Revenues are being used NOT actual patient charges. Learn why this hides true health care charges.