Educating Patients on Warfarin, One Game at a Time

​Patients receiving warfarin will often need to continue taking it after discharge from the hospital, and some may require warfarin therapy for a long time. It is important that patients receive education about the drug while they are in the hospital so they can manage their therapy properly at home. Patients who are knowledgeable about their medication therapy can help to reduce the risk of adverse drug events. Education should begin with the patient’s first dose of warfarin, and all patient education needs regular reinforcement.

Tips

·        Educate patients as well as their family members or other people who live with the patients or assist with their care.

·        Use patient-directed dosing as a way to ensure that patients understand what they are taught about managing their warfarin therapy.

·        Continue education on an outpatient basis through a clinic or dosing service.

·        Use innovative tools, such as games and apps, to reach your patients post discharge.

o   Cardiac Island, from mHealth Games reinforces important objectives for patients taking Coumadin. Click the picture below to play.

Cardiac Island

Join Captain Jack on a race for treasure around Cardiac Island! Test your knowledge of Coumadin (Warfarin) and unlock treasures of health and wellness.

RI Medicare Non-Profit Receives $53.4 Million Federal Contract

Healthcentric Advisors, Medicare Rhode Island's Quality Improvement Organization, has been awarded a 5-year, $53.4 million federal contact by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“This award, on the part of CMS, acknowledges the positive role Healthcentric Advisors has played in improving the quality and safety of healthcare in Rhode Island. Again, our state will continue to serve as a national model for healthcare transformation initiatives,” said John Keimig, president and CEO of Healthcentric Advisors.

CMS awarded Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization contracts to 14 organizations across the country.  In order to reach the initiatives set forth in the QIN-QIO contract, Healthcentric Advisors will be joined by Qualidigm, the current QIO in the state of Connecticut, as a subcontractor.  Healthcentric Advisors and Qualidigm will administer the contract to all 6 New England states.

"Healthcentric Advisors and Qualidigm will work across New England on strategic initiatives such as reducing healthcare associated infections, reducing readmissions and medication errors, working with nursing homes to improve care for residents, supporting clinical practices in using interoperable health information technology to coordinate care, promoting prevention activities, reducing cardiac disease and diabetes, reducing health care disparities and improving patient and family engagement," a statement from Healthcare Advisors said. "The partnership will also provide technical assistance for improvement in CMS value based purchasing programs, including the physician value-based modifier program."

http://www.golocalprov.com/health/new-ri-medicare-non-profit-receives-53.4-million-federal-contract

30 Percent Of Hospital Readmissions Could Be Prevented

Article Date: 20 Jun 2013 - 1:00 PDT

With Medicare penalties on hospitals with higher-than-expected rates of 30-day readmissions expected to rise in 2014, more hospitals are evaluating the most accurate methods for tracking readmissions of patients. A new study appearing in the June issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons finds that the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program® (ACS NSQIP®) led to more accurate data tracking than another popular database, the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC), for tracking 30-day hospital readmissions among colorectal surgical patients. 

Currently, readmissions for Medicare patients alone cost $26 billion annually. About $17 billion of that could be avoided if patients received the right care from the start, according to a February 2013 report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.* Last year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) began cutting one percent of reimbursements for 30-day readmissions among Medicare patients. That penalty is expected to increase to two percent in 2014 and three percent in 2015. 

Readmissions are devastating for patients who have had major operations and then end up back in the hospital 30-days later due to complications. "It's extremely disruptive to patients, their lifestyles, and their caregivers," said Elizabeth Wick, MD, FACS, study author and assistant professor in the department of surgery at Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore. 

Readmissions can also lead to poorer outcomes for the underlying disease. "For example, forcolorectal cancer, the goal is to get these patients into chemotherapy within three months of the operation," Dr. Wick explained. "But if a patient is readmitted with a wound infection, that event delays initiating additional treatment to fight the disease, which could have a long-term impact on the outcome." 

But tracking readmissions is challenging for hospitals. Moreover, in the current climate there is no standardized way that readmission data is reported to CMS. As the authors point out, "there is no consensus on the best methodology for establishing preventable readmission and by default, pay-for-performance incentives are beginning to use all-cause readmission rates." 

One tool, the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) database, is commonly used to track readmissions by using administrative data that's used for billing purposes. "A major issue is that manual data is so labor intensive to collect," Dr. Wick said. "Billing data was never intended to be used to drive patient care. But we've been using that data as a last resort, because until recently we didn't have anything else to work with." 

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/262170.php