Best practices and benchmarking in healthcare : a practical journal for clinical and management application
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Best Pract Benchmarking Healthc · Sep 1996
Clinical pathway for pneumonia: development, implementation, and initial experience.
As part of a large multidisciplinary project to reduce cost, decrease hospital length of stay, and improve efficiency of patient care at Saint Mary's Hospital, a clinical pathway for pneumonia was developed and implemented. ⋯ The pneumonia clinical pathway that was implemented was associated with reductions in the length of stay and total charges. These reductions were seen in relationship to historical controls and to patients cared for concurrently who were not placed on the pathway. Although not fully used on all pneumonia patients, the presence of the pathway probably had some positive effects even on patients not formally on the pathway, through systems changes and educational influences. The pathway also positively influenced other conditions by the use of ancillary algorithms for conditions other than pneumonia, and the more rapid administration of antibiotics for other infectious diseases. Also, lessons learned in the creation of this first pathway have been helpful in streamlining the process of future pathway development.
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Best Pract Benchmarking Healthc · Sep 1996
Benchmarking surgeon satisfaction at academic health centers: a nationwide comparative survey.
Forty-six academic health centers (AHCs) belonging to the University HealthSystem consortium joined forces to compare the efficiency of their surgical services and to identify best practices. In addition to measures of operational performance, surgeon satisfaction with the surgical services provided was measured by using a standardized questionnaire. ⋯ The surgeon satisfaction survey allowed the participants to establish benchmarks for surgeon satisfaction for each key component of the surgical services they receive. The site visits revealed several common characteristics of highly efficient surgical services. Taken by themselves, the participating institutions might have been reluctant to consider adopting these best practices for fear of alienating the surgical staff. The availability of data on surgeon satisfaction showed the participants that these best practices can coexist with high levels of surgeon satisfaction. This has helped to promote their adoption by the other participating institutions.