American journal of medical quality : the official journal of the American College of Medical Quality
-
This article describes information useful for consumers and purchasers in making choices about health care services. Two types of information are described, patient satisfaction surveys and public reports about the price and outcomes of health care services such as those published by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council. ⋯ The goal of patient satisfaction reporting is to incorporate the patient's perspective to improve care. Public reports about the price and outcome of hospital and physician services not only facilitate consumer and purchaser choice, they also encourage continuous quality improvement by providers.
-
A multidisciplinary group was formed to develop strategies to reduce ventilator-associated lower respiratory tract infections (LRI) in an intensive care unit (ICU) of a 540-bed acute care teaching medical center. The group process was facilitated by the Infection Director and the quality management specialist. The group was made of medical, nursing, and respiratory therapy staff. ⋯ The results of the evaluation were used as feedback to measure protocol implementation. This was found to improve compliance with the protocol. Both the process (care of ventilated patients) and the outcome (number of LRI) have been improved through use of continuous quality improvement concepts and transdisciplinary interventions.
-
To determine the incidence of laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) and open cholecystectomy (OC) and some of their possible outcomes (complications, mortality, 30-day readmission) in the general population of senior citizens, we examined Medicare claims data for beneficiaries 65 years and older in eight states. Billing data for all cholecystectomies (ICD9-CM 51.22, 51.23) performed on an inpatient basis in those states on Medicare beneficiaries age 65 and older during fiscal year 1992 were examined. The incidence of LC in each state ranged from 2.1 to 3.2/1,000, whereas the incidence of OC ranged from 2.2 to 3.5/1,000. ⋯ Patients who underwent OC were more likely (9.2%) to be readmitted within 30 days than were LC patients (7.0%). LC seems to be at least as safe as OC in the elderly population. Analyzing Medicare claims data can be useful in uncovering geographic variations in cholecystectomy practice.
-
The effect of a triage and care system, which employs continued patient education, alternatives to emergency department (ED) care for nonemergent problems, and close cooperation between ED staff and the primary care physician on inappropriate ED use, was analyzed for three groups of patients: (a) Medicaid patients, all of whom had unrestricted access to the ED; (b) group A patients who required prior physician approval and copayments for all ED services; and (c) patients enrolled in group B who were responsible for copayments only and did not require prior physician approval for ED use. Two hundred ninety-nine (299) charts were prospectively reviewed for age, payer status, date, time of visit, diagnosis, outcome of visit, and severity of illness. ⋯ Medicaid patients were significantly younger than group A or B patients (P < 0.001) and had lower severity scores (P = 0.04). Our triage and care system failed to alter patterns of ED utilization for Medicaid patients.