Medical care
-
Growing scrutiny of readmissions has placed hospitals at the center of readmission prevention. Little is known, however, about hospital nursing—a critical organizational component of hospital service system—in relation to readmissions. ⋯ Better nurse staffing and work environment were significantly associated with 30-day readmission, and can be considered as system-level interventions to reduce readmissions and associated financial penalties.
-
Hospice use has increased substantially during the past decade by an increasingly diverse patient population; however, little is known about patterns of hospice use and how these patterns have changed during the past decade. ⋯ The substantial proportion of hospice users with very short or long enrollment, or enrollments that end before death, underscores the potential for interventions to improve the timing and appropriateness of hospice referral so that the full benefits of hospice are received by patients and families.
-
Surgical checklists are increasingly used to improve compliance with evidence-based processes in the perioperative period. Although enthusiasm exists for using checklists to improve outcomes, recent studies have questioned their effectiveness in large populations. ⋯ Implementation of Keystone Surgery in Michigan was not associated with improved outcomes or decreased costs in Medicare patients.
-
All hospitalized patients should be assessed for venous thromboembolism (VTE) risk factors and prescribed appropriate prophylaxis. To improve best-practice VTE prophylaxis prescription for all hospitalized patients, we implemented a mandatory computerized clinical decision support (CCDS) tool. The tool requires completion of checklists to evaluate VTE risk factors and contraindications to pharmacological prophylaxis, and then recommends the risk-appropriate VTE prophylaxis regimen. ⋯ Despite the fact that risk-appropriate prophylaxis should be prescribed equally to all hospitalized patients regardless of race and sex, practice varied widely before our quality improvement intervention. Our CCDS tool eliminated racial disparities in VTE prophylaxis prescription across 2 distinct clinical services. Health information technology approaches to care standardization are effective to eliminate health care disparities.
-
Meditation, imagery, acupuncture, and yoga are the most frequently offered mind and body practices in the Department of Veterans Affairs. Yet, the research on mind and body practices has been critiqued as being too limited in evidence and scope to inform clinical treatment. ⋯ Meditation and acupuncture practices are among the most frequently offered and studied mind and body practices. Future research should include yoga as it is currently understudied among veterans and military personnel. A repository of mind and body intervention outcome measures may further future research efforts, as would conducting pragmatic trials and more robust RCTs.