Clean Hands Count for Safe Healthcare

"Clean hands can protect you from serious infections while you are a patient in a healthcare facility.

What’s The Problem?

Most germs that cause serious infections in healthcare are spread by people’s actions. Hand hygiene is a great way to prevent infections. However, studies show that on average, healthcare providers clean their hands less than half of the times they should. This contributes to the spread of healthcare-associated infections that affect 1 in 25 hospital patients on any given day. Every patient is at risk of getting an infection while they are being treated for something else. Even healthcare providers are at risk of getting an infection while they are treating patients. Preventing the spread of germs is especially important in hospitals and other facilities such as dialysis centers and nursing homes..."
Hand hygiene

Hospital-Based Emergency Departments: Background and Policy Considerations

"Hospital-based Emergency Departments (EDs) are required to stabilize patients with emergent conditions regardless of the patients’ ability to pay as a requirement of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). Given this requirement, EDs play an important part in the health care safety net by serving the uninsured, the underserved, and those enrolled in Medicaid. Open 24 hours a day, EDs provide emergency care, urgent care, primary care, and behavioral health care services in communities where these services are unavailable or unavailable after hours. EDs also play a key role during emergencies, such as natural disasters..."
Hospitals

35 U.S. hospitals designated as Ebola treatment centers

"An increasing number of U.S. hospitals are now equipped to treat patients with Ebola, giving nationwide health system Ebola readiness efforts a boost.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), state health officials have identified and designated 35 hospitals with Ebola treatment centers, with more expected in the coming weeks.

Hospitals with Ebola treatment centers have been designated by state health officials to serve as treatment facilities for Ebola patients based on a collaborative decision with local health authorities and the hospital administration..."
Ebola hospitals

Physician Practices: Background, Organization, and Market Consolidation

"A growing number of U.S. physicians are combining their practices; affiliating with hospitals, insurance companies, and specialty management firms; or going to work directly for such organizations. The moves are part of a broader trend toward consolidation in health care, with the overall number of mergers and acquisitions in the sector at the highest level in a decade...


This report provides background on factors contributing to changes in physician practice organization,
including physician supply, sources of revenue, operating costs, and government incentives. It also examines the different types of integration, the legal intricacies of affiliation, and the possible implications for consumer and federal policy..."

https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42880.pdf

Hospital Compare
Rating of hospitals from the Medicare.gov web site.

Factors Influencing Rural Residents’ Utilization of Urban Hospitals
"Objective—To examine, using nationally representative data, which patient, hospital, and county characteristics influence rural residents’ urban hospitalization.

Methods—Rural residents hospitalized in urban hospitals (crossovers) are compared with those hospitalized in rural hospitals (noncrossovers). National Hospital Discharge Survey data were merged with Area Resource File and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services data to study rural inpatients’ characteristics; hospital descriptors; and county or state socioeconomic and health service variables. Multivariate logistic regression analysis identified covariates of the likelihood of being a crossover.

Findings—About one-third of the rural resident hospitalizations in 2003 were in urban hospitals. Other factors constant, those requiring greater resources had higher odds of crossing over, as did younger inpatients, those transferred from other hospitals, receiving surgery, and with mental diagnoses or congenital anomalies. Males, emergency admissions, and intervertebral disk disorder inpatients had lower odds of crossing over compared with those who were not in these categories. Crossover patients’ hospitals had higher Medicare case mix indices than hospitals used by noncrossovers. Rural inpatients in government hospitals, rather than proprietary or non-profit hospitals, had greater odds of crossing over, as did rural patients from counties with lower population density, fewer hospital beds, more hospitals, more commuters, and lower per capita income compared with those in other categories.

Conclusions—Rural hospitals continue to be an important source of inpatient care, but rural residents travel to urban hospitals in some specific instances."

EPA Tightens Air Emissions for Hospital, Medical, and Infectious Waste Incinerators
"EPA is setting new limits that will affect most existing hospital, medical, and infectious waste incinerators. This final action will reduce about 390,000 pounds of several pollutants each year including acid gases, nitrogen oxides, and metals such as lead, cadmium, and mercury. EPA is also finalizing additional testing, monitoring, and inspection requirements.

This final action revises the September 1997 new source performance standards and emission guidelines for these incinerators and responds to the Court remand of the regulations. It also satisfies the Clean Air Act requirement to conduct a review of the standards every five years."

More information on the final rule and amendments.

NEW RATINGS FOR AMERICAS HOSPITALS NOW AVAILABLE ON HOSPITAL COMPARE WEB SITE
"Important new information was added today to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Hospital Compare Web site that reports how frequently patients return to a hospital after being discharged, a possible indicator of how well the facility did the first time around. The site is www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov.

On average, 1 in 5 Medicare beneficiaries who are discharged from a hospital today will re-enter the hospital within a month. Reducing the rate of hospital readmissions to improve quality and achieve savings are key components of President Obama’s health care reform agenda.

"The President and Congress have both identified the reduction of readmissions as a target area for health reform," said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. "When we reduce readmissions, we improve the quality of care patients receive and cut health care costs."

With the update announced today, Hospital Compare will provide better data on the previously posted mortality rates for individual hospitals, as well as the new data on 30-day readmissions for heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia. Previously, Hospital Compare had provided only mortality rates for these three conditions..."

SAMHSA Releases New Data on Drug-related Hospital Emergency Department Visits
"The latest Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) report - drawn from a sample of hospital emergency departments across the Nation - indicates that more than 1.7 million visits for treatment were associated with some form of substance misuse or abuse. The 2006 DAWN report, developed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), provides the latest estimates on how substance use affects this critical part of the Nation’s healthcare system.

Among the report’s more notable findings:

• Cocaine was involved in 548,608 emergency department visits.

• Marijuana was involved in 290,563 emergency department visits.

• Heroin was involved in 189,780 emergency department visits.

• There were 126,704 emergency department visits by patients under age 21 where alcohol was the only substance involved in the visit.

• Stimulants, including amphetamines and methamphetamines, were involved in 107,575 emergency department visits."

Hospital Compare - A quality tool for adults, including people with Medicare
"Welcome to Hospital Compare. This tool provides you with information on how well the hospitals care for all their adult patients with certain conditions or procedures. This information will help you compare the quality of care hospitals provide. Talk to your doctor about this information to help you, your family and your friends make your best hospital care decisions.

Hospital Compare was created through the efforts of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Department of Health and Human Services, and other members of the Hospital Quality Alliance: Improving Care Through Information (HQA). The information on this website has been provided primarily by hospitals that have agreed to submit quality information for Hospital Compare to make public."