HMC News•
on October 21st, 2011•
NRHA Partners with iVantage Health Analytics to Benchmark Rural Health
KANSAS CITY, MO, September 28, 2011 – The National Rural Health Association (NRHA) announced today at its Critical Access Hospital Conference the names of the Top 100 Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) in America. The Top 100 scored best on the Hospital Strength Index™, in this first-ever comprehensive rating of CAHs. NRHA also announced a partnership with iVantage Health Analytics to improve and advance business intelligence and benchmarking for rural healthcare and to support the 1,750 rural hospitals whose executives are seeking to improve performance.
This Index offers hospital executives, trustees and boards of directors an objective way to measure their relative performance among their peers and across 56 different performance metrics, the most comprehensive tool on the market.
“Now is the time for us to advance the analytics and transparency of the rural health sector. We play such a critical role in providing needed care to Americans, yet our challenges are completely different in access while equally complex in delivery as urban hospitals. We celebrate this diversity and these every day challenges and will need new solutions to ensure our sustainability under the Affordable Care Act. NRHA is committed to advancing performance improvement in our hospitals,” said Alan Morgan, Chief Executive Officer of the National Rural Health Association.
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HMC News•
on October 21st, 2011•
PORTLAND, ME, September 21, 2011 – The first hospital ratings system to address the new challenges required by healthcare reform that includes all U.S. acute care hospitals and traditionally unrated rural and critical access hospitals was launched today by iVantage Health Analytics, a newly formed healthcare business intelligence and technology company.
Called the Hospital Strength Index™, the strategic planning tool is designed to deliver hospitals a balanced scorecard and comparable rating of their performance as they begin implementing mandates of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. This Index offers hospital executives, trustees and boards of directors an objective way to measure their relative performance among their competitors and across 56 different performance metrics, the most comprehensive tool on the market. read more
HMC News•
on October 21st, 2011•
PORTLAND, ME, September 21, 2011 – Veteran healthcare industry executives Hud Connery, Tom Day, LeeAnne Denney, and John R. Morrow today announced that they have combined their respective companies (Performance Management Institute, LLC, of Portland, ME; The Healthcare Management Council, Inc., of Needham, MA; Health InfoTechnics, LLC, of Nashville, TN; and The Ratings Guy, LLC, of Belfast, ME) under the umbrella of a common parent company to provide a single source of business intelligence solutions to help providers address the complex requirements of managing under the new healthcare. Although the existing companies will continue certain operations, all new business opportunities will be pursued by the newly formed parent entity, and ultimately all consolidated into the single entity.
Named iVantage Health Analytics, Inc.™, the privately held company, provides comprehensive and objective business information products to help hospitals and health systems strategically manage their growth during a period of significant health reform. read more
HMC News•
on January 18th, 2011•
The extraordinary insight HMC provides for benchmarking and performance improvement is now available to use in your OPPE scorecards!
The Joint Commission (JCAHO) requires accredited hospitals to examine and evaluate performance data for all practitioners with privileges on an ongoing basis as part of their Ongoing Professional Practice Evaluation (OPPE) initiative.
JCAHO requires:
- Data on actual performance & performance issues
- Ongoing internal review and evaluation (more frequent than annually)
- Use of data to guide decisions on whether to continue or take action on privileges
- Incorporation of data into credentials files
It’s a worthy initiative – but many hospitals have been struggling to comply with the new standards.
HMC Can Help
HMC’s clinical benchmarks have long provided “deep-dive” drill downs to examine utilization patterns at the procedure code and diagnosis code level. The drill downs also enable clients to uncover off-quality sources and their costs, and find problems and focus on solving them.
However, with JCAHO’s Ongoing Professional Practice Evaluation (OPPE) initiative the world of physician analysis has been inverted. Rather than find the 10 things to focus on and fix, this initiative requires organizations to examine and evaluate performance data for all practitioners with privileges, on an ongoing basis.
The same information HMC uses to evaluate utilization patterns, off-quality problems, and costs is essential for this task – however, its access and “direction” changes. Instead of “Which physicians drive my biggest quality issues?” the question is: “How does each physician’s practice compare?”
The HMC OPPE component shows a profile for each physician – types of cases, quality performance, resource utilization, unexplained practice variation, and economics. This data is compared to internal and external peers. Instead of an annual benchmark for the purpose of setting priorities, it has become an ongoing system applicable at any time during the credentialing and clinical management process. It’s a resource, a scorecard, and a goal setter for physicians – in short, a critical step along the path of evidence-based care.
HMC’s OPPE Component Supports
Medical Staff Governance
- Physician profiles detail performance
- Quality performance (AHRQ indicators & outcomes)
- Resource utilization
- Unexplained practice variation
- Economics
Risk Management
- Quality analytics identify performance issues, sources, and associated costs
Compliance
- Get out front of JCAHO requirements
Improving Reimbursement and Cost of Off-Quality
- Know the sources and costs associated with “should-not-happen” events
ACO development
- Quality, Economics, Resource Utilization—all in one place
And, it’s fast and easy to get started. One month from now you’re up and running – just open your browser.
Contact HMC to learn more.
See example panels from HMC’s web-delivered OPPE scorecard here.
Uncategorized•
on January 11th, 2011•
My husband reached a milestone a few months ago – his first screening colonoscopy. The prep and procedure went surprisingly well; he looked good and seemed “with it” when he came out of the procedure room (although I found out later he remembered next to nothing!). According to the nurse who reported out, he had one polyp; they removed it. It was small, about 5 mm in diameter. She showed me a picture of it. She said they would biopsy it and let us know the results.
About three days AC (After Colonoscopy), a letter arrived. It seemed to be an informational letter about Tubular Adenoma Polyps, what they are, how they may be pre-cancerous. The last line of the letter said my husband was recommended for re-screening in five years.
We were both confused by the letter. Was his polyp a Tubular Adenoma Polyp or some other kind? It says they MAY be precancerous – that’s a scary sentence. Was his polyp pre-cancerous? If it was, does that make a difference? Why was “polyp” plural throughout the letter when the nurse said he only had one polyp? Did he really have more than one? Did they biopsy it/them? What was the result of the biopsy?
The letter did NOT say, “Your polyp was not cancerous.” The letter did NOT say “The results of the biopsy on your polyp were negative.” The words results and biopsy weren’t anywhere in this letter. My husband was perplexed. His exact quote was “My little engineer brain is looking for a test result. I can’t find it in this letter.” So we waited a few more days, assuming that a “results” letter or phone call would arrive.
When none was forthcoming, he called the office to ask for clarification. Now, we’re not sure whether he was speaking to the receptionist, a nurse, a CNA, a PA or a physician. They don’t really make the distinction when you call and my husband didn’t think to ask. He called the office and assumed, like most of the population, that he’d get a thoughtful, medically appropriate answer. The response was stunning, and not in a good way. The person told my husband, “The name of the polyp tells you it’s benign.” Really? We re-read the letter. It didn’t say benign tubular adenoma polyps. So, exactly how should my engineer-brained husband be able to ascertain that tubular adenoma polyp means benign? Especially when the text also says that they may be pre-cancerous? She offered one other helpful bit of advice. “You can look it up on WebMD and see what it means.” Really? Really? We go to the physician; they do tests and procedures; they send us a letter but we, the people with little engineer brains, the paying customer (!), have to go online and interpret the results ourselves?
An aside: I entered “tubular adenoma polyps” into the search box on WebMD. It returned an overview of colon polyps. No mention of tubular adenoma polyps. I had much better results on Wikipedia.
The reporting of the results was incongruous to the prep. There were four phone calls prior to the colonoscopy to make sure he did the prep just so; they canceled two scheduled colonoscopies because he had taken a medication they deemed unsuitable. They put a great deal of time and effort into making sure he understood everything leading up to his colonoscopy; too bad they couldn’t put a little more effort in reporting out the results so that the “little engineer brains” of the world would understand.
I have two suggestions. First – don’t let your front-line staff direct patients to a third-party website for medical information, especially if you are not 100% sure of the website content. Second – carefully review the discharge instructions and reports you give patients. We aren’t physicians or nurses. We have no clue what “tubular adenoma polyp,” or many other common medical words mean. We can, however, understand “You had one polyp and we removed it. Your polyp was a tubular adenoma polyp. The biopsy of your polyp was negative and showed no evidence of cancer. Sometimes tubular adenoma polyps can be pre-cancerous, but yours was not. We recommend you for re-screening in five years.” Trust me; it’s much better to personalize the result, be succinct and direct; and it’s impossible to overstate the obvious for the non-medical brains out there.
Shelley Burns is the Director of Knowledge Management for HMC, Inc.
