Sharing successes, challenges and daily happenings in the Department of Medicine
The Department of Medicine supports diverse outpatient practices that offer a range of highly sought-after clinician groups. This strength can also present challenges when trying to apply clinic standards for ambulatory medicine. What initiatives are most important to improve patient care and safety? Who decides the priorities? How do we achieve the goals? These questions are(...)
Why are we talking about MHACs? To promote quality improvement and financial responsibility, Maryland and the federal government have instituted hospital pay for performance programs. Maryland is unique nationally in that the state sets hospital reimbursement rates for all payers. Maryland hospitals have a waiver from CMS’s Value Based Purchasing incentive program (limited to Medicare(...)
The Department of Medicine has provided a great deal of leadership and direction when it comes to access and ambulatory operations. Our access team continues to out-perform the hospital average and produce high levels of service. Our ambulatory groups have succeeded in lowering the rate of provider-initiated cancellations, decreasing the number of open encounters, all(...)
After the successful renovation of the Nelson building, the hospital has been busy renovating the 7th, 8th and 9th floors of the Meyer building. In the fall of 2016, patient rooms and some offices currently housed on Halsted 2, 3 and 4 and Osler 2 will move to the Meyer building. Meyer 7 will house the(...)
On October 1, 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and The Joint Commission (TJC) launched a Sepsis Core Measure for all 4000 Joint Commission-accredited U.S. hospitals. Core Measures are evidence-based process measures to reduce morbidity and mortality. Well-known examples include inpatient pneumococcal vaccination, venous thromboembolism prophylaxis requirements and achieving quick door-to-balloon time(...)
The new Global Budget Revenue (GBR) agreements seem to be working. Initial statewide data show hospital volume is declining and quality is improving. We are now entering year three of a five-year demonstration project with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as part of the waiver modernization program. So what’s next? One of(...)
Within the Department of Medicine we have a broad array of ambulatory practices, with diverse patients, practitioners and locations. This richness is our strength and challenge in many ways. Initiatives designed to make both the patient’s and practitioner’s experience positive and more uniform will require a coordinated effort to identify best practices in the outpatient(...)
In the era of patient-centered care, a tremendous amount of time and energy is expended in understanding the experience, perspective and needs of our patients. Understanding the patient perspective is critical to providing the excellent care in which we as a department always aspire. Meeting the needs of our patients in the hospital or in(...)
Johns Hopkins, in conjunction with the Clinical Practice Association, is embarking upon a new method to monitor the closing of our clinic encounters. As detailed in several emails that you recently received, this process will be embedded in our current procedure for monitoring discharge summaries and operative notes. Once a month, the Department of Health(...)
2015 concluded with the Bayview Inpatient and Revenue Cycle Epic go-lives. Thank you to the central Epic team and to those faculty, nurses and administrators from the Department of Medicine who spent nights, days and weekends making this a successful go-live. We also want to recognize those who continue to support the transition. Overall we(...)