by
Lauren Dubinsky, Senior Reporter | March 02, 2015
From the March 2015 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
MedStar Heart Institute recently entered into an alliance with Cleveland Clinic. After several site visits, MedStar began making changes to streamline pre- and post-operative procedures and improve the information management system so it can handle more extensive data collection and outcome measurement.
Duke’s Atwater believes that in order for a hospital to be successful, it must adapt to the changing health care environment. In 2013, Duke joined the CMS Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative to learn more about bundled care and how it affects cardiology.
Atwater is not at liberty to discuss his experience with the initiative, but he did mention that the hospital is starting to focus more on the cost associated with hospital readmission after procedures. “To drive down readmissions we need to drive up the quality of the initial experience for the patient,” he says. “We do our very best to prevent complications associated with the procedures.”
The hospital also takes advantage of the time before the procedure to ensure that the peri-procedural time frame works smoothly for the patient. As a result, the hospital has seen a significant reduction in both the average length of stay and in the readmission rate. That advice applies to every hospital, whether it’s a small, rural hospital or a large hospital like Duke. “We operate in the same payment environment that they do,” says Atwater. “We are looking to try to be as efficient and as slick as possible to make this happen in a cost-effective manner.”
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