White Papers

Reaching Zero Defects in Core Measures
Evidence-based medicine is supported by research that demonstrates better outcomes for patients including lower mortality, lower morbidity, less disability, shorter length of stay and fewer readmissions. The public reporting of core measures has created opportunities for hospitals to improve processes and apply evidenced based medicine in order to enhance the quality of care. After a decline in core measure scores, our hospital developed a concurrent abstraction process allowing for real-time identification and correction of defects. The interdisciplinary approach facilitated substantial improvement, thereby allowing us to reach between 95% -100% in core measure appropriate care scores.
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HCT Surge Plan
During the threat of the H1N1 virus, HCT created a document to guide hospitals in emergency situations. The HCT Surge Plan qualifies types of emergencies and the appropriate response from the relevant staff members in the hospital. This guide addresses emergencies ranging from community crisis to statewide disasters. If you have any questions on this or our other ED related services including assessment, rapid cycle implementation or interim management please email us at info@hctconsulting.net.
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Addressing Violence in the ED
Experts continue to debate whether ED violence is on the rise, but what seems to be clear is the need to be prepared whether or not the ED you work in or manage has experienced violence. The best preparation to keep everyone safe is appropriate training. Educating emergency department staff on how to deal with violent, confused or otherwise out-of-control patients can reduce the threat of violence in your ED.
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Rapid Cycle Performance Improvement Strategies
Rapid Cycle Performance Improvement is an approach that allows an organization to implement large changes in a very short period of time. This paper is a quick guide to offer the basics on how to structure and carry out a successful rapid cycle change engagement. This review also focuses on the key success factors for long term sustainability including documentation of hard and soft results.
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OR Turnover: Performance Improvement through Rapid Cycle Change
OR turnover times affect satisfaction of patients, employees and the hospital’s bottom line. Quick OR turnover times can increase OR efficiency by reducing staffing to match OR utilization, and increasing the number of cases. These benefits directly affect both the hospital’s bottom line and the hospital’s reputation among employees and within the community. This white paper is an examination of process improvement strategies implemented in a real hospital.
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Eliminating Medicare 1-day Stay Bill Holds: Performance Improvement through Rapid Cycle Change
Observation patients, or the lack thereof, plague many hospital Case Management departments. Case Managers and physicians do not utilize the observation status enough, usually because they are not well trained in admission criteria. In this paper, HCT focuses on how to reduce denied bills and outlines strategies to streamline performance of Case Managers in admission criteria compliance.
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Reducing AR Days: Performance ImprReducing AR Days: Performance Improvement through Rapid Cycle Changeovement through Rapid Cycle Change
One of the largest assets a hospital has is its accounts receivable. Net accounts receivable may represent half of total assets for a typical hospital. Reducing net AR days is critically important to a hospital’s financial health. Although it may be difficult to influence a poor market or immediately renegotiate managed care contracts, hospitals can immediately address collection processes. This white paper is an examination of process improvement in collection strategies implemented in a real hospital, in the business office department.
498.18 kB : pdf file