As an ER nurse and nursing educator, I could not possibly find your comments more ill-informed. Clearly you know absolutely nothing about which you write. Allow me to educate you.
Speaking from my position of expertise, I applaud the withholding of compensation for patient recidivism (that means be re-admitted within 72 hours after being discharged from a hospital for the same diagnosis). There is no excuse for sloppy treatment or procedure- ever.
Meanwhile, nurse leaders, educators, and staff will continue to push for the improvement of patient safety and healthcare delivery- just as we have been for the last 50 years through research, education, political action, and literature.
I work at a hospital that has spent millions upon millions of dollars improving everything from informatics to medication preparation to food service to even how staff communicate with each other. As a result, our hospital's annual error rate has been reduced from 23 to 3. And that's the total from all units.
And the taxpayer did NOT pay for that. We, a privately-funded hospital, did it on our own with hospital staff and administration working together for 5 years to make the improvements. And that, sir, is not reflective of the intellectually-lazy, sloppy, bad, dirty, incompetent "civil servant" attitude that you have ascribed to us.
So in conclusion, and as a response to your ill-considered and uninformed condemnation of my colleagues and myself, I cordially invite you (and anyone else here who thinks was you do) to kiss my ass. If you think you can do my job better than I can, step right on up.
Well as an ER nurse, I find your response to prove my point. Why do you think your hospital went on the quality kick? Do you think it was to “improve” the error rate? Or do you think it was a reimbursement rate.
And shame on your for bragging about improving your error rate from 23% to 3%. Your administrators should be in jail for allowing that to happen.
And how did you manage to measure that. Other posters are telling me you cannot manage “widgets.”
Again, I am simply amused by the nurses who think their performance cannot be measured objectively. And, as the government is the largest provider of insurance reimbursements, you cannot stand by the sidelines and pat yourself on the back for your improvements.
All true conservatives would like the government out of the insurance business. I think on that we can agree.
But that is not about to happen. So I have to laugh when the people posting on this site get all up in arms about objective measures being instituted. Are they perfect? No. But by your own admission, the impending implementation of these metrics caused your organization to improve on your quality from hurting 23% of your customers to only 3%.
Can you think of another business that could survive with a 23% error rate?
I know we should “strive for perfection” and certainly we expect that from our medical providers. I have my eyes wide open to the repeat offenders and the people who simply have no regard for their own care. I understand that.
My profession is assisting companies find their areas of opportunity. The first step of that is coming up with metrics where there were none. It is clear you cannot do what I do, or your starting number would not be 23%.
I applaud your organization for fixing the problems. I am sincere in that. There are too many places, all over the country who give lip service to quality—clearly yours is not one of them.
But, someone like me probably came in and said, why are your reimbursements the way they are? Someone came in and said, “In the near future your reimbursements are going to be measured against ‘these’ criteria.
Without seeing you, I am not sure I would find pleasure in kissing your ass. Its a preference thing. If you are a male nurse, and you ass is covered in hair...that would be distasteful for me. :-}
After reading your response, and considering the state of your hospital five years ago, I think we are in complete agreement.
As a nurse, please tell me, were you in complete agreement with ALL of the changes that were put in place. Were the complaints? Was there resistance? Did they add to staff? Did they add new software to comply with the electronic billing systems? I would be really interested in hearing the story. If you would prefer to send me a PM, I would love to engage in a conversation, not a debate.
A drop in errors to the degree that you cite, is a real success story. I am willing to bet the CFO of your company is dancing in the streets. I am also willing to bet that yours will be a company that ends up buying smaller hospitals where you can benefit from improving their quality.
Yes, I am sort of a bean counter. I do not see patients as widgets. But I know that time is valuable. If you do not have to see the same patient over again in 72 hours that is going to translate into better care, and less stress in the system. And then ends up with a better patient experience. And that makes everyone happy.
Again, aside from the snotty ending, we are talking about the different ends of the same rope. I am talking about the beginning and you the end.