Tag: Patient Care Services

Attitude Toward Patient Care

“American physicians need to be totally able to do what they have been trained to do, succeed at practicing medicine. American patients need to be totally able to choose the family health insurance coverage and medications that suit their needs, not something forced by a central power. This simply cannot occur under the imprisoning pressure of the Affordable Care Act.” – Richard A. Armstrong, M.D. “Under the Affordable Care Act, physicians who effectively work together with other suppliers to improve patient care results, the value of healthcare services and patient experiences will flourish and be the leaders of the healthcare care program.” – Robert Kocher, M.D.; Ezekiel J. Emanuel, M.D.; Nancy-Ann DeParle

Physicians have been caught in the middle of the transformation of the American healthcare care distribution program brought on by the Affordable Care Act. Doctors who battle the regulation and those who support it are trying to adjust to a fast changing healthcare environment. A Deloitte Center for Health Solutions survey of American physicians found 44 % thought the ACA was “a good start” and 44% reacted that “it is a step in the wrong direction.” Obviously, older physicians were more likely to be in the second group of participants than younger physicians.

The ACA overhauls the healthcare care distribution program in the following ways:

  • It improves accessibility healthcare for more Americans
  • It creates incentives to promote better patient care synchronization and quality
  • It provides feedback to physicians on cost and quality of their patient care
  • It changes the payment program from fee for service to value based
  • It focuses on patient-centered care
  • It depends on increased use of electronic medical records
  • It attempts to increase access to primary care and allied health providers

Improving Patient Care with Technology

Citizens at the Kane Regional Centers will soon have a new friend in the physician’s office: “Telly,” a tele-presence digi-cam rig that can connect to a remote doctor and gather healthcare details during exams. The rig is part of a UPMC-run program called RAVEN or Initiative to Reduce Avoidable Hospitalizations Using evidence-based Interventions for Nursing Facilities in Western Pennsylvania, which is financed by a $19 million grant from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

“Bringing tele-medicine to the Kane Centers will enhance the speed and performance of patient care with which residents receive healthcare consultations when there is a change in their health,” Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said. “It will also slow up the need to transport residents to a medical center or E.R., which is difficult for some of them.” “Telly” will not substitute doctors, who will still perform routine exams. It’ll only be used when an individual’s condition changes, along with a shift in breathing, heart function or pain. The robot-like rig will be monitored by physicians and can examine the eyes, ears, nasal area, neck, respiratory system, heart, stomach, skin, arms and legs and neurological system.

The rig looks like a pc monitor on wheels with a digi-cam secured on top. It comes equipped with tools like a wireless stethoscope, which can pass on details to a doctor at another location. Close relatives will be able to listen in via PC and telephone. “We recognize that a patient’s doctor or health professional specialist is sometimes not available at the skilled nursing facility to assess and treat the citizen when there is a change in their usual health,” Kane Executive Director Dennis Biondo said. “The goal is to provide ongoing access to high-quality patient care and health-care professionals.”

Patient Care and Staff Recognition

All staff, from administrators to porters, needs to experience recognition, thanks and support for the work they do. Yet far too few organizations truly pay attention to their staff or acknowledge the significance of their experience. Even less act upon what they hear to make staff feel it is worth speaking out, worth raising their head above the parapet to state that employment levels are risky or that they are being harassed. We need to pay attention to staff better and act upon what they say if we want them to feel respected, remain in their selected career and provide sympathetic patient care.

The majority of people get into professional doctor and nurse education and learning inspired by principles and a sense of altruism, at least originally, but these features can become worn away eventually by the requirements of the program and the job. There are particular difficulties associated with working with, and directly caring for, sufferers or patient care in other words. We ask them to do this all day, every day, in a fast moving atmosphere where they often feel unrecognized and in need of support and where some will encounter great stress and feel burnt out. It is little wonder that some units have problems with staff revenues and recruiting.

The patient care work has found that sympathetic high ideals and principles, held dear by graduating learners, can become discontinued and mashed, with nursing staff confirming some degree of burn out within two years of certification. Across all staff groups, the requirements of patient care work mean that cynicism can develop and staff can become less understanding and more distant from their sufferers.  It is therefore crucial to secure staff from the problems of patient care work. Everyone needs support and restoration.

Strategies For Patient-Centered Care

Nearly 200 medical professionals from around the state gathered in Manchester to share their communities’ techniques to providing Vermonters with high-quality, patient-centered medical care. “With all the state and federal policy changes ongoing, medical service suppliers remain targeted on why we are so deeply engaged in this work, to create lasting improvements in patient care and community wellness,” says Bea Grause, President and CEO of the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems (VAHHS).

The conference provided an opportunity for members to understand about colleagues’ experiences with new techniques to clinical care, finance and governance issues. The meeting’s centerpiece was a “town hall” session in which members shared ideas and strategies medical service suppliers are employing to ensure Vermonters receive high-quality medical care. The session also targeted on giving sufferers and families a voice in their care. “Patients want authentic engagement in care choices,” says Ben Chu, Board Chair of the American Hospital Association. “It’s exciting to understand about the efforts ongoing in Vermont that will interact with sufferers in a way that educates them about their options and respects their needs and values.”

The VAHHS Annual Meeting took place during a time of rapid and significant changes. Medical centers and other suppliers around the state are developing OneCare Vermont, a provider network established to eliminate unnecessary care, use resources wisely and interact with sufferers in their wellness and fitness. In October, many individuals and small companies will begin purchasing health insurance coverage through Vermont Health Connect, the state’s new online health insurance coverage market. The state is also beginning work on a federally-funded State Innovation Model (SIM) project to test new patient care delivery and payment models. “Vermont continues to lead on medical care reform,” says Raymond Hurd, Regional Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). “We are excited that Vermont is using an innovation model as another way to improve high quality of patient care and individual experience while lowering the cost of medical care for its citizens.”

Optimizing Patient Care and Safety

Rideout Health, a non-profit community-based healthcare program, and RGP Healthcare™, a department of Resources Global Professionals (NASDAQ: RECN), declared that Rideout has selected and is applying Pavisse™,  a cutting-edge technology for tracking and guaranteeing individual protection. Rideout operates facilities and services located throughout Yuba, Sutter and The state of Nevada counties. They include acute-care healthcare centers Rideout Memorial and Fremont Medical Center; the Heart Center at Rideout; the Rideout Cancer Center, associated with UC Davis Medical Center; out-patient primary and specialized treatment centers and a host of additional services, such as senior living services, home health, hospice and durable healthcare equipment.

Pavisse, developed by RGP Healthcare, is a new extensive occurrence control solution designed to help healthcare centers manage individual safety, individual privacy and other compliance-related functions across the enterprise. “We will be one of the first healthcare centers in the Sacramento region to set up this software,” said Istikram Qaderi, M.D., Senior V.P. and Chief Quality Officer at Rideout. “We’ll first set up Pavisse at Rideout Memorial and once the program is running nicely, we’ll look to using it at other locations in our organization to help us continually monitor and improve the superiority of our patient care, which is always our priority.”

Dr. Qaderi, a former physician, moved his career focus recently to helping healthcare and patient care organizations work with doctors and other staff to arrange clinical care and patient-centered solutions in applications for performance improvement. He has spoken and published substantially on subjects such as quality, doctor and team engagement, safety, individual fulfillment, performance quality and culture change. Dr. Qaderi sees RGP Healthcare President Radgia Cook as an “innovator” in patient safety and incident control and further described the Pavisse product as life changing. “Pavisse is just one of several state-of-the-art tools we will use to deliver on this objective,” Dr. Qaderi said. “It is extensive, user-friendly, and easy to set up and personalized to each facility’s needs. And RGP professionals are available to help us reap the most benefit.”

Said Cook, “Rideout Health is just the type of forward-thinking partner we sought. We are thrilled about integrating with Rideout Health as they continue to serve as a national model for the delivery of quality healthcare.”