The ACA and Me: A Dispatch From the Trenches

Argonauta: The Beach at My Back/ oil stick on paper, 2010 by Julianna Paradisi Argonauta: The Beach at My Back/ oil stick on paper, 2010 by Julianna Paradisi

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN, writes a monthly post for this blog and works as an infusion nurse in outpatient oncology.

 “Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it.”—Jane Wagner

By 2014, up to 30 million Americans will have gained access to health care insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). As a nurse human being, I support increased access to health care. However, it is naive to believe it can be accomplished without sacrifice.

My job is a casualty of the ACA.

But let’s backtrack:

It’s more accurate (but less dramatic) to say that our country’s need of better health care delivery significantly affects my job. Most hospital nurses are familiar with Medicare tying reimbursement to patient outcomes. Further, built into the ACA is a requirement that hospitals expecting Medicare reimbursement form accountable care organizations (ACOs):

Under the proposed rule, an ACO refers to a group of providers and suppliers of services (e.g., hospitals, physicians, and others involved in patient care) that will work together to coordinate care for the patients they […]

2016-11-21T13:07:22-05:00June 5th, 2013|nursing perspective|6 Comments
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ECRI Conference Notes: Creating and Replicating ‘Systemness’ within Health Care Delivery

By Joyce Pulcini, PhD, RN, FAAN, Policy and Politics contributing editor, AJN

The ECRI Institute’s 19th annual conference (November 28–29) looked at system-level innovation and quality in the health care system. It brought together experts from many fields, including medicine, nursing, hospital or health system administration, informatics, health care quality, policy makers, journalists, and academics. ECRI Institute is an independent, nonprofit organization that researches the best approaches to improving the safety, quality, and cost-effectiveness of patient care. The goals of the conference were to address the following:

  1. What is “systemness”?
  2. Which elements within mature health care systems result in the best clinical outcomes?
  3. Are approaches taken by long-established systems transferable to smaller, newer, or less integrated systems?
  4. Are financial incentives enough to drive change?
  5. How can electronic health records (EHRs) help improve “systemness”?
  6. Do transformation units within health care systems produce results?

The conference essentially tried to attack in a creative way the issues around the creation of systems that function optimally. Truly changing culture and providing optimal care delivery should always result in putting the patient at the center of care. The conversation was open and the conference succeeded in fostering important dialogue among the speakers and the audience.  A major focus was on creating systems, looking at technological or financial solutions, and measuring outcomes.

The session on team care (“Creating teams to improve inter- and intra-health care systems: Does evidence show a benefit?”)  highlighted the vexing issues around how to truly foster optimal teams. Lisa Schilling, RN, MPH, VP National HC Performance Improvement, Director, Center for […]

2016-11-21T13:08:48-05:00December 5th, 2012|digital health, health care policy, nursing perspective|0 Comments
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From the Blogs: Negotiating Medicare, Nurses Doing Research, Reader Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOClkw1TNks&feature=player_embedded]
Medicare is confusing for providers who aren’t yet familiar with it. Here’s a Nursetopia post that draws attention to its complexity and notes the useful video above (it’s one of a series of videos on different aspects of Medicare). Those of you who know all about it already: Drop by her thoughtful (and consistently updated!) blog and let her know your own tips on handling the ins and outs of Medicare and Medicaid.

EBP matters. Terri Schmitt at Nurse Story has a frank and engaging post on evidence-based practice (EBP): “Translation of EBP: Why Creating Nurse Scientists is the Way to Improve Patient Outcomes.” Here’s what she promises to cover in it:

  • Research is sometimes far removed from bedside nurses
  • Research is COOL!
  • Research is about PATIENTS and not fame/fortune of researcher
  • Research is critical to practice and there are big gaps that nurses need to fill
  • Bedside nurses may be the most crucial link in research ideas, translation, and practice.

(Shameless plug for related AJN content: See our recent, amazingly useful step-by-step CE series on how nurses can get involved in evidence-based practice.)

Plus a brief note on reader comments: we’ve been getting a lot of great comments lately on this blog, and we’re grateful for that. So thank you. A fair number of the comments were on posts from previous months, such as this post comparing U.S. and Australian health care systems. Is somebody by chance teaching a nursing course that requires students to leave thoughtful, respectful, engaged comments in the blogosphere? If […]

2016-11-21T13:11:21-05:00November 29th, 2011|nursing research|0 Comments
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Military Metaphors, Unnecessary Admissions, New Blogs, Keeping Secrets

It’s a common scenario: a 90-year-old resident of a U.S. nursing home — call her Ms. B. — has moderately advanced Alzheimer’s disease, congestive heart failure with severe left-ventricular dysfunction, and chronic pain from degenerative joint disease. She develops a nonproductive cough and a fever of 100.4°F. The night nurse calls an on-call physician who is unfamiliar with Ms. B. Told that she has a cough and fever, the physician says to send her to the emergency room, where she’s found to have normal vital signs except for the low-grade fever, a normal basic-chemistry panel and white-cell count, but a possible infiltrate on chest x-ray. She is admitted to the hospital and treated with intravenous fluids and antibiotics. During her second night in the hospital, Ms. B. becomes confused and agitated, climbs out of bed, and falls, fracturing her hip. One week after admission, she is discharged back to the nursing home with coverage under the Medicare Part A benefit. The episode results in about $10,000 in Medicare expenditures, as well as discomfort and disability for Ms. B.

There is an alternative scenario, however . . .

That’s from an article in NEJM called “Reducing Unnecessary Hospitalizations of Nursing Home Residents.” In any health care system of as much complexity as ours, there’s bound to be a huge amount of waste. The article gives a good example of how the skills of NPs might be put to excellent use both saving a lot of money for Medicare and making the lives of nursing home residents a whole […]

2016-11-21T13:11:50-05:00September 29th, 2011|nursing perspective|2 Comments
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To Err is Human . . . To Improve Elusive?

Peggy McDaniel, BSN, RN, is an infusion practice manager and occasional blogger

As a nurse working in the quality improvement and patient safety arena, I’m not surprised that the title of a recent article at Fierce Healthcare got my attention: “Hospitals Are Bad for Your Health.” The article highlights a recently released report from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General based on a study of Medicare patients discharged in 2008. Among other things, it revealed that “44% of adverse or temporary harm events were clearly or likely preventable.” The usual culprits were to blame:

  • infections
  • medication errors
  • surgery-related errors
  • patient care issues

Most of these have been previously labeled as “never events” by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), and currently hospitals are not being reimbursed for the costs incurred if one or more of these happen to a patient while in the hospital. CMS was the first to implement such a pay-for-performance model—and major insurance companies have followed their lead.

In recently published NEJM study, 63% of the adverse events reported in the hospitals studied were deemed preventable. This study was disheartening because we recently passed the 10-year anniversary of the release of the

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2016-11-21T13:14:47-05:00December 1st, 2010|nursing perspective|3 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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