Engage!

Walk through most any new healthcare facility, and it is readily apparent: these buildings are a far cry from the designs of our grandparents’ era. Architects, designers and technology providers are teaming with clinicians and facilities managers to create facilities that put the patient experience at their core.

Original article posted on eclarifire.com.

Professionals in the healthcare field know a better patient experience directly translates to increased patient satisfaction scores and positive impact to hospital reimbursements.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released data last fall that shows good news for hospitals working to reduce patient readmissions. From 2010-2015, 30-day hospital readmission rates fell by 8 percent nationally – with reductions noted in every state but one.

The most recent data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality estimate that hospital-acquired conditions have declined 17 percent in the past four years.  The agency notes that “nearly 87,000 fewer patients died in the hospital as a result of the reduction in HACs and that approximately $19.8 billion in health care costs were saved from 2010 to 2014.” Why the decline? AHRQ points to numerous reasons:  financial incentives by CMS and other payers, more public transparency and reporting, and the availability of expanded resources supporting quality improvement initiatives.

Young patients at Santa Barbara’s Cottage Children’s Medical Center now have access to “pet therapy” of a different stripe, with the hospital’s addition last summer of the San Diego Zoo Kids channel on its Allen Interactive Patient Engagement Solutions televisions. Pediatric patients can view live animal cams, zookeeper interviews and kid-friendly, animal-focused videos.

Today’s automated world has created heightened expectations for service, convenience and connectivity. Hospitals are measured in their customer-service delivery models through HCAHPS. Improving the patient experience doesn’t have to be hard -- and measuring success is possible.

A recent report out of Kentucky pointed to challenges in nurse staffing levels and their potential impact on patient safety. The study, conducted by the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, noted that nurses in that state often have more patients than they can effectively handle. But Kentucky hospitals are not alone.

Mixed in with the usual holiday cards and greetings arriving soon, hospital C-suites can anticipate one from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) when it issues its December 2016 Hospital Compare ratings.  How hospitals fare on CMS ratings reports impacts Medicare and Medicaid hospital payments, and increasingly, private payers also are taking note of hospital ratings when assessing reimbursement levels.

Halloween has passed, fall has arrived – and with it comes the perennial pain in our noses and chests: influenza.

When Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital opened in 1952, its founders envisioned a hospital equipped with the latest technology to deliver a high-quality healthcare experience to the region.  Given that mission, it should be no surprise that Salinas was one of the earliest adopters of adding televisions in patient rooms in the early 1970s, a revolutionary concept at the time and one that Allen Technologies pioneered.