Archive for December, 2008
CMW Tip of the Week: Communication is key with physician advisors
This week’s tip comes from Sharon Mass, PhD, ACM, and Donna Ukanowicz, MS, RN, ACM.
It is helpful for physician advisors (PAs) and staff members to have viewing rights to each other’s electronic calendars and be able to communicate via text messaging or e-mail. The most important element is to be able to touch base with each other at any given time during the working day. Determine the best mode of communication for different types of information. For example, if you need an immediate decision for an emergent need, you may wish to text with a contact number if verbal discussion is required. If the need is not urgent and can wait until the end of the day, you may wish to send an email and put in the header, “Reply needed by 5 p.m. today” or “FYI only” for information that does not need a response.
Have a tip or tool you’d like to share? Or maybe a question for our experts? E-mail it to editor Julie McGinley at jmcginley@hcpro.com.Your thoughts could be featured in the next issue of Case Management Weekly!
CMW Tip of the Week: Case managers and core measures
This week’s tip, an “Ask the Expert” is provided by June Stark, RN, BSN, MEd.
Q: What role does the case manager play in coordinating and implementing core measures?
A: The primary barrier to having a case manager in this role is that it adds yet another responsibility to an already overburdened caseload.
If a case manager accepts the responsibility of becoming involved in the core measure process, this should not mean he or she becomes the leader of the project or carries out the core measures at the bedside. Instead, the case manager performs what is called “the sweep,” which is a final review of a patient’s chart.
This is the last opportunity to make sure all the core measures have been carried out and documented by the staff nurses and physicians throughout a patient’s entire hospital stay. In essence, the case manager has the final word on the completion and documentation of the core measures.
Have a tip or tool you’d like to share? Or maybe a question for our experts? E-mail it to editor Julie McGinley at jmcginley@hcpro.com.Your thoughts could be featured in the next issue of Case Management Weekly!
CMW Tip of the Week: Data collection dos and don’ts
This week’s tip, an “Ask the Expert,” comes from Karen Zander, RN, MS, CMAC, FAAN.
Q: The social workers and case managers are spending too much time collecting data, and they don’t care about the data I show them. What should I, the director, do?
A: Do an inventory using a chart of the data they are collecting every day, which category of personnel collects it, how the data gets processed into reports, and who wants the reports—which may be more than one person or group. Then determine how important it is and to whom, which may take some conversations. Be willing to drop some element of the data collection if 1) it is not interdependent on another piece of information (an interdependency might be avoidable days as a partial explanation of LOS) and if 2) the data has no bearing on current decisions by you or the executive team (such as productivity measures that do not help you get more needed FTEs). And a huge consideration is that every piece of data costs money to collect and process and display and review!
Have a tip or tool you’d like to share? Or maybe a question for our experts? E-mail it to editor Julie McGinley at jmcginley@hcpro.com.Your thoughts could be featured in the next issue of Case Management Weekly!
CMW Tip of the Week: Hospitalists reduce length of stay
Hospitalists create a win-win situation for themselves and the hospitals they work in, says Toni Brayer, MD, on eMaxhealth.com.
Hospitalists are physicians who typically work as part of a hospitalist group that provides coverage to a hospital seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Hospitalists become the attending physicians for patients in the hospital—but only while they are in the hospital. Patients return to the care of a primary care provider after the hospital stay.
Brayer notes hospitalists often make more money working in the hospital than having their own practice. They are paid more by the hospital than they would receive by billing Medicare or Medicaid, and have no practice costs or employees to manage.
Additionally, hospitals with hospitalists programs have guaranteed coverage in the emergency department, better standardized protocols of care, and reduced length of stay.
Read the full article here.
Have a tip or tool you’d like to share? Or maybe a question for our experts? E-mail it to editor Julie McGinley at jmcginley@hcpro.com.Your thoughts could be featured in the next issue of Case Management Weekly!
