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We can't wash our hands too often, in or out of a Hospital.
Posted on 01/24/2015 1:27:06 PM PST by LucyT
Nationally, 724 hospitals have had their Medicare funding reduced after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that each had high rates of potentially avoidable “hospital-acquired conditions,” including falls, bed sores, and certain infections, including ventilator acquired pneumonia and catheter-associated urinary tract infections.
CMS scored hospitals on the prevalence of three risk factors to their Medicare population patients: central line bloodstream infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, and serious complications, a catch-all group made up of eight types of injuries, including blood clots, falls, and bed sores.
Funding can be reinstated for hospitals whose scores improve in the targeted areas.
(Excerpt) Read more at inquisitr.com ...
724 Hospitals Have Lost Medicare Funding For Avoidable Complications: Is Your Local Hospital One Of Them?
A high number of hospital falls, catheter infections, or bloodstream infections indicate insufficient staffing, and poor technique, such as not washing hands often enough, or cross-contamination from other patients.
We can't wash our hands too often, in or out of a Hospital.
Won’t this create “Medicare deserts” in those areas where the poor live?
Sounds like those hospitals need to hire more people better at playing the paperwork game. For a few million a year each, those hospitals can find people who’ll play the game better.
Of course, none of that money will actually improve patient care, but then, that was never the point.
practically unavoidable...
falls?...again, there is so much red tape regulation in using ANY restraint plus it is profoundly discouraged by the regulatory agencies that restraints are seldom ever used...thus, you have old people climibing out of bed by themselves and falling....you know, "dignity" in aging...you have druggies and alcoholics climbing out of beds, Alzheimer patients, dementia.....UNLESS THE FAMILY CAN STAY IN THE ROOM....AWAKE....24/7 these falls are going to happen, period...
these people in the ivory towers have no a clue....not a single clue...how an acute care hospital gets by....intense,constant,back breaking work prevents further problems...
eg...we had HALF of our patient load on my floor under isolation..flu, mrsa, rsv, you name it....yet we have visitors in and out of rooms without gear, using public brs, going down to the cafeteria and there is absolutely no legal authority to prevent them......and people wonder about hospital infections...
For the record, the POINT of tying Medicare funding to self-reported improvements in care is to report how great Obamacare has been at improving care.
Obamacare: show us statistics that demonstrate improved care or we’ll cut your funding.
Hospitals: our care is better and here is paperwork we provide to prove it. Don’t cut our funding.
Obamacare: we’ve improved care.
Media: Healthcare Improves Under Obamacare.
That is the first step, the next is to tell hospitals that they have to treat more of the right people (illegals).
I was standing at a nurses station a short while ago while a doctor was explaining to the nurses the rules the hospital had to abide by for the number of nurses in each ward.
Based on the time of day, number of patients, the patients condition, nurses had to be called in, or let go. They had to keep the precise number of nurses on duty. It was a complicated 10 minute dissertation.
As a survivor of recent surgery, hospitals should also be graded on the quality of their food. For patients trying to heal and strengthen their bodies to be given a tray wrapped in plastic so no aroma of the food can tempt the taste buds, is ridiculous. Of course, the food is not seasoned, so there isn’t much to excite the tastebuds anyway. To be served a bowl of cold oatmeal for breakfast is not the way back to health.
The main reason to withhold funding from the healthcare system is to destroy it. They will use excuses like pretending they are trying to improve it through some objective scoring. But in reality the hospitals that turn away or kick out sick patients will score better. In time those will no longer be hospitals but money transfer centers from taxpayers to obamacare political supporters. The old fashioned hospitals that quaintly keep trying to help people will be driven out of business by lack of payments. The Feds will take it all over eventually on the grounds that it failed even though they are the ones who will destroy it.
That’s why you bring a salt shaker to the hospital.
I have always loved the food at hospitals. It’s always well-prepared.
But I have also never been a patient in a hospital.
How is this possible? The usual prescription for government failure is bigger government and more money. The rest of DC needs to run this way.
It will keep the poor from dying.
There is not much good in Obama care.
The two good things are the standardization of the Electronic Medical records. While I understand the security risks, I also have seen the benefits first hand. I had four doctors looks at an MRI within an hour of its being completed. Four doctors, four buildings, and what could have been a serious condition was ruled out before I got home.
The second thing is the Accountable Care Organization. For those of us in the real business world, think of it as quality control. People think hospitals are clean and their staffs are competent. They are not.
This rule will eventually base reimbursements on the cost of quality. Your insurance will drive you to the low cost, high quality provider. And if you live in a community with more than one hospital provider—you will be shocked to find the “welfare” or “religious” hospitals have been living with this stuff for years. And they will generally perform better.
This is good. I know a lot you might think its not. But it is.
I had to live in a hospital for a week because of an infection in my finger. I felt great, even though my finger was splayed open like a hot dog.
I finally convinced my wife and daughters that the insurance was covering this crappy food, and that they were saving money by my not eating at home. Therefore they should bring me a meal when they came.
If you are not forced to eat because of a dietary restriction, bringing in food is the best thing you can do.
You said it well. Also,when Medicare drops its reimbursement to a hospital, they have to fire more staff, so the complications increase.
Palmer you could not be more wrong.
99% of Obamacare is about insurance, and they are doing it wrong.
the 1 or 2 % that is actually about medical care is pretty good. This will not “withhold” funding. It will direct the same funding to where it can do the best work.
For example, consider the Ebola guy in Texas. He showed up in the ER. He was “treated” and released. Then he showed up again. He was is misdiagnosed because the people treating him did not follow the specified procedure.
If this guy was on Medicare, these rules would NOT pay for their screw up. The first visit would be revoked. And they would not pay for the second visit, for the same issue, within 30 days.
Yes, that is an extreme example. But it points out the key points: They will pay for the care. But they will not pay for mistakes or incompetence.
Clearly, if you come in on Day 1 with a bad appendix and then a week later with a heart attack, they are two incidents.
Yes, I am a conservative. More libertarian actually. I hate government insurance. I am not a fan of the VA system. But THIS part of the law will save BILLIONs over the next few years. Re-admits will go down. Beds will be available. And the Drs and Nurses will have to pay attention the the details.
A hospital is not a hotel, although patients like to feel that way. You can always ask the nurse to microwave your .A hospital has to serve food to over 200 patients every meal, not to mention the visitor cafe.
No. You are actually wrong.
You will see the bad folks weeded out. And there are a lot of bad, incompetent and lazy folks working in hospitals. It WAS the 21 century version of a “civil service” job.
Because insurance paid for whatever they were sent, the costs went up. Now, the personnel will have to actually do their job, stay clean, and prevent re-admissions.
We (the taxpayers) are paying for this. It is the first time in ages that I think they finally got something correct. I hate the insurance part of the ACA, but the little bit that actually had to do with medical care will help and conservatives should be embracing it.
It is pay for performance. Think of how the school teachers would be bitching about this if the same thing happened to schools; you are hearing from the union nurses about this stuff.
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