|
For information on this report, please E-mail Lori Henshey or call 304-353-9747.
February 3, 2012 Volume 48 Number 3
Hospital Day Less Than a Week Away - Thursday, February 9, 2012
With Hospital Day at the Legislature less than a week away, all final preparations are being made. The day will begin with the Legislative Breakfast in the Culture Center at 7:30 a.m. Team information packets can be picked-up at the WVHA registration table located at the entrance of the Culture Center. Team leaders should also be finalizing appointments with their district’s legislators, as well as reminding them that hospital groups will be attending floor sessions. This will allow the opportunity for the legislators to recognize individual groups from the floor. WVHA wants to encourage all Hospital Day participants to attend the Proclamation reading that is to be held at 10:00 a.m. in the Governor’s Reception Room. Lunch will be provided at 11:45 a.m. in the Culture Center, and is extended until 2:00 p.m. in order to fit into various schedules. The complete Hospital Day 2012 Agenda and Information Packet can be accessed here. For more information on Hospital Day activities, please contact Tina Rymer.From the Dome to be Issued During Legislative Session
Each week during the 2012 Regular Session, the WVHA will include a special section in
the Friday Report entitled From the Dome. This communication will provide a wrap-up of
legislative activity at the Capitol during the 60-day Regular Session, including significant
floor and committee activity important to the hospital community. The communication
also is one of the primary ways to be informed of any Call to Action on legislation being
debated, complete with WVHA positions on the relevant bills being discussed. For more
information, please contact Tony Gregory. City Hospital CEO Gains Executive Recertification
Anthony P. Zelenka, chief administrative officer of West Virginia University Hospitals-East's City Hospital, has been recertified as a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), an international professional society representing close to 30,000 healthcare executives. Zelenka, who has more than 30 years of healthcare management experience, first achieved Fellow status in 1983. Fellow status is the highest level of professional achievement in ACHE. For more information, please contact Lori Henshey. CCHIT to Provide EHR Overview of EACH™ Program at Conference Certification Commission for Health Information Technology’s (CCHIT) electronic health records (EHR) Alternative Certification for Healthcare Providers (EACH™) program is designed to meet the needs of hospitals and healthcare providers that have uncertified legacy software, customized commercial products, or have developed their own EHR systems. During a Feb. 22 presentation at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Annual Conference, New York University Langone Medical Center and CCHIT will provide an overview of the medical center’s experience self-certifying an EHR in the EACH™ program. Representatives of individual hospitals and hospital systems are invited to meet with the CCHIT certification team to learn more about the EACH™ program during the HIMSS meeting in Las Vegas, February 21-23. Appointments may be scheduled online or by contacting Dana Smicklas. For more information, please see the release on CCHIT’s website. For any question, please contact Sarah Deitze, 312-558-1770. For more information, please contact Lori Henshey. |
|
National Healthcare Decisions Day Approaching The fifth annual National Healthcare Decisions Day (NHDD) will be held on April 16, 2012. The day exists to inspire, educate and empower the public and providers about the importance of advance care planning. NHDD is an initiative to encourage patients to express their wishes regarding healthcare and for providers and facilities to respect those wishes, whatever they may be. All adults can benefit from thinking about what their healthcare choices would be if they are unable to speak for themselves. These decisions can be written down in an advance directive so that others know what they are. Advance directives come in two main forms:
The West Virginia Center for End-of-Life Care (WVCELC), located within the Health Sciences Center at WVU, will list participating organizations on its website. Please E-mail or call Cindy Jamison, 304-293-8164, at the WVCELC with the name and phone number of the person who will be coordinating the effort in your organization. Also contact Cindy if you need assistance with planning or materials to distribute on that day. Attached are several documents for your reference, including an NHDD Case Statement, an NHDD 2011 Report Card, and a letter to President Obama regarding the importance of NHDD. For more information, please contact Lori Henshey. 14th Annual Pleasant Valley Hospital (PVH) Hospice Tea Held
The 14th Annual Pleasant Valley Hospital (PVH) Hospice Tea was recently held at the Mid-Ohio Valley Center in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. PVH Home Health and Hospice employees, along with friends of the community, were in attendance for the lunch and celebration. “Hospice is so often thought of as being about death. The reality is that hospice focuses on life — the quality of a patient’s life, regardless of how long that might be,” said Mistie Best, RN, MSN, MHA – Director of Home Care Services. “Through effective management of a patient’s illness, he or she can live their remaining time to the fullest.” Pleasant Valley Home Health Services provides care to patients of all ages who no longer require hospitalization, but continue to require periodic attention in their home. Home Health Services provide the patient with skilled nursing care, personal care services, physical therapy, social services, IV therapy services, speech therapy, occupational therapy and 24-hour on-call nursing. They serve Mason and Jackson counties in West Virginia and Gallia, Meigs and Athens Counties in Ohio. For more information, please contact Lori Henshey.
Hospital Groups Urge Congress Not to Cut Funding for Hospital Services The AHA and eight other national hospital groups yesterday urged members of Congress to oppose cuts to Medicare funding for hospital services as part of any agreement to extend past February a tax and unemployment package that includes an extension of the Medicare physician payment fix. “America’s hospitals strongly support fixing Medicare’s flawed physician payment system but not by further cutting resources for the hospital services upon which America’s seniors depend,” the groups wrote. “We remain extremely concerned that cuts in Medicare and Medicaid payments for hospital services are again on the table as part of the upcoming House-Senate conference committee on H.R. 3630.” The House-passed H.R 3630 includes a two-year Medicare physician payment fix. To help offset the cost of the payment fix, the bill would cut payments for hospital outpatient evaluation and management services by $6.8 billion; reduce Medicare bad debt payments that help hospitals care for low-income seniors; rebase Medicaid disproportionate share hospitals in future years; and extend the annual therapy cap to the hospital outpatient department. The bill also does not include several important rural Medicare extenders and increases spending by relaxing restrictions on self-referral to physician-owned hospitals. “America’s hospitals encourage you to look elsewhere to pay for changes to the sustainable growth rate (SGE), including looking at the Overseas Contingency Operations funds, so long as those funds cover the entire cost of the SGR fix,” the groups wrote, noting that the $20 billion in proposed reductions to hospital payments could translate into 83,000 jobs lost. AHA News Now, February 1, 2012 Bill Would Improve Medicare Payment for Small, Rural Hospitals Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Mike Thompson (D-CA) yesterday introduced the Rural Hospital and Provider Equity (R-HoPE) Act (H.R. 3859), AHA-supported legislation that would provide additional Medicare funding for small and rural hospitals. The bill would improve Medicare payment for rural hospitals that serve a disproportionate share of low-income patients, and adjust the low-volume adjustment for small prospective payment system hospitals that do not qualify as critical access hospitals. It also would extend reasonable cost reimbursement for clinical diagnostic laboratory services provided by small rural hospitals in certain states and a 5 percent add-on payment for rural home health agencies, among other provisions. The AHA voiced support for the bill in letters to McMorris Rodgers and Thompson. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) introduced a Senate version of the bill (S. 1680) in October. AHA News Now, February 1, 2012 MAP Issues Final Pre-Rulemaking Recommendations The National Quality Forum’s Measures Application Partnership (MAP) Tuesday sent the Department of Health and Human Services its final recommendations on more than 350 performance measures the agency is considering for federal healthcare programs in 2012, including value-based purchasing and the hospital inpatient and outpatient quality reporting programs. The report supports about 40 percent of the measures and rejects 45 percent, mostly citing a lack of information to complete its evaluation of those measures. The MAP supports the remaining 15 percent of the measures in concept, but says they need to be further developed and tested before inclusion in the associated federal program. The partnership also submitted a separate report outlining a performance measurement coordination strategy for home healthcare, nursing facilities, inpatient rehabilitation facilities and long-term care hospitals. Both reports are available here. AHA News Now, February 1, 2012 Bipartisan Policy Center Issues Health IT Recommendations The Bipartisan Policy Center Friday issued recommendations for using health information technology (IT) to improve healthcare quality and health while reducing costs. Based in on interviews with healthcare system leaders and a literature review, the report identifies common attributes of high-performing healthcare organizations and recommends actions to address gaps and barriers to achieving the health IT capabilities that support these attributes. The recommendations focus on aligning financial incentives and addressing concerns about health information privacy and security; increasing adoption of electronic health records and health information exchange; improving consumer e-health tools; and aligning IT and quality requirements across federal healthcare programs. Among other actions, the report calls for a clear path forward on health information exchange, supported by a national strategy to accurately match patients to their records. AHA News Now, February 2, 2012
Report Pegs Community Benefit Expenses at 11.3 Percent Modern Healthcare, February 2, 2012 Tennessee Hospital Collaborative Improves Surgical Outcomes Hospitals participating in the Tennessee Surgical Quality Collaborative substantially improved surgical outcomes while reducing costs, according to a study published online by the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. The improvements reduced the rates of acute renal failure, surgical site infections and other complications, which led to a net savings of nearly $2.2 million per 10,000 general and vascular procedures. "We demonstrated that hospitals in a collaborative can greatly improve their quality by sharing data, comparing results, and evaluating best practices and process improvement approaches with their peers," said Joseph Cofer, M.D., statewide surgeon champion for the collaborative and surgery residency program director at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine-Chattanooga. The collaborative, coordinated by the Tennessee Hospital Association's Tennessee Center for Patient Safety, is part of the American College of Surgeon's National Surgical Quality Improvement Program. AHA News Now, January 30, 2012
Hospital Day at the Legislature February 9, 2012 For more information, please contact Tina Rymer. WVHA Disaster Preparedness Training Program February 8, 2012 Hospital Incident Command Systems (HICS) For more information, please contact Samantha Stamper. 25th Annual Rural Healthcare Leadership Conference February 5-8, 2012 Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort Phoenix, Arizona Click here for more information. For more information, please contact Tamra Goodall.
For Important Critical Access Hospitals events, click here. For more information, please contact Dianna Iobst. Free Online Hospital Evacuation Training Available Current through January 2013. For more information, please contact Samantha Stamper. WVHA Disaster Preparedness Training Program February 15, 2012 Exercise Evaluation and AAR Writing Workshop For more information, please contact Samantha Stamper. February 15, 2012 For more information, please click here. National Healthcare Decisions Day April 15, 2012 For more information, please contact Lori Henshey. May 23-25, 2012 Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center Washington, DC Click here for more information. 2012 Respecting Choices Advance Care Planning Facilitator Training August 15, 2012 - Charleston Town Center Marriott For more information, please contact Lori Henshey. Political Cartoon: Half Century? By Dan Reynolds
|
