Meaningful Transformation - A blog from Elsevier CPM Resource Center
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Is it March Already?

by Michelle Troseth

With this past week’s HIMSS and ENA leadership conference, I don’t know where the year has gone.  With all of the travel I find myself on, it seems harder and harder to carve out time to get my blog thoughts down.  However, I do enjoy this uninterrupted time in front of my computer to write what I see are some important changes and work happening in healthcare today.

Over the past two months, we’ve been exploring the Measures for Use in establishing Quality Performance Standards that Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) must meet for shared savings.  Last month, we discussed the Patient/Caregiver experience and this month I want us to explore the Care Coordination/Patient Safety area.

This section still lies in the aim of Better Care for Individuals and has six tenets which must be followed:

  1. Risk-Standardized, All Condition Readmission
  2. Ambulatory Sensitive Conditions Admissions:  Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
  3. Ambulatory Sensitive Conditions Admissions:  Congestive Heart Failure
  4. Percent of PCPs who successfully qualify for an EHR Incentive Program Payment
  5. Medication Reconciliation:  Reconciliation After Discharge from an Inpatient Facility
  6. Falls: Screening for Fall Risk

As we start to look into the next section of Better Health for Populations, the above listed areas are all in the reporting stage and will switch to the performance stage in year 2 and year 3.  With AONE’s upcoming conference in March, Elsevier CPM and our other business units will be talking with conference attendees and sharing client stories on what success looks like for these measure titles.

Please feel free to comment on your own successes below, or post on our Twitter or Facebook accounts.

Thank you for all that you do for health care and I look forward to seeing everyone during my conference and speaking travels.

Posted in: Accountable Care Organizations, Meaningful Use 0 comments

In recognition of Alzheimer’s and Dementia staff education week

by Michelle Phelps

In recognition of Alzheimer’s and Dementia staff education week, one of our Elsevier CPM staff members, Michelle Phelps, took some time to discuss the educational journey she went through as a nurse and a daughter when one of her family members was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

My mother was a wonderful person. She was funny, generous, loving, attractive, creative…and one of my best friends. Alzheimer’s disease changed everything.

As an RN, I have been prepared to take care of patients and respond to physical, emotional and spiritual needs. I was not prepared to be a daughter losing her mother over a period of 10 years to a cruel disease. I cannot adequately describe what it feels like to watch someone you love lose all of those special qualities that made her the person that she was. I was grieving her loss while she was still alive. As a nurse, I knew that this disease was following the expected course. However, the daughter part of me struggled. It was devastating the first time she forgot my name. As time went on, she forgot how to do even the simplest things…changing her clothes, brushing her teeth, taking a shower. She forgot that she was a mother and looked at me as a rival…not as her daughter. She forgot that she was married and did not remember my father. Home was no longer a comfort for her…it was unfamiliar. She came to refuse my efforts to help her and care for her. Although I knew it was the disease, the pain was still there for me.

One thing she did not lose was her love of God. Even in her last months of life, she retained that love and talked about God. It was pretty amazing. Our faith has been a central part of all of our lives. God provided strength for my father and I to be on the journey with my mother and He continued to care for her. I lost my mother to this dreadful disease in 2010. I still miss her, but she is at peace. I would never wish her back as she was in the later years of her life, but I am so thankful and blessed to have had her as my mother…and one of my best friends.

Michelle has been employed by CPM for nearly 7 years. She is a graduate of Butterworth School of Nursing, holds a BSN from University of Detroit/Mercy and a Master’s Degree in Management from Aquinas College. Michelle’s clinical experience has been in several different areas of Obstetrics, including Antepartum, Antenatal Testing, Labor & Delivery and Postpartum.  She also has experience in case management within the ambulatory OB/GYN clinic setting.  Michelle contributes her expertise to many evidence-based content development projects with her specialty focus being Obstetrics and Newborn care. She currently holds the position of Product Director for both CPM CarePoints Guidelines™ and CarePoints Emergency™ products.

 

Posted in: CPM General 0 comments

Oh How the Year Flies By

by Michelle Troseth

As we prepare for the upcoming spring conference season, I am excited to see Elsevier CPM is making great strides with our business and client partners.  This quarter, we plan to be working with our consortium members on making better our CarePoints product and more importantly, making better the care we deliver to all patients.

Last month, I promised we would be delving into the 33 Accountable Care Organization (ACO) requirements that CMS put out this year in an effort to gain shared savings from its participating hospitals.  This month, we’ll be looking at the Patient/Caregiver experience and what the seven (7) standards under the better care for individuals aim is looking to accomplish.

  1. Getting Timely Care, Appointments and Information
  2. How Well your Doctors Communicate
  3. Patients’ Rating of Doctor
  4. Access to Specialists
  5. Health Promotion and Education
  6. Shared Decision Making
  7. Health Status/Functional Status

Each of these standards are scored with a Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey (CAHPS).  These surveys, formally known as the Consumer Assessment of Health plans have both a print and web based option to help health systems provide what’s best for patients.

Some of the sample areas health systems can explore to meet this criteria are:

  • Helpfulness of provider’s use of computers during a visit
  • Getting timely answers to medical questions by e-mail
  • Helpfulness of provider’s website in giving information about care and tests
  • Getting timely appointments through e-mail or a website

While these survey items only scratch the surface of what can and should be done to meet these standards, at least it gives organizations a jumping off point to help get them started in meeting their savings requirements.

Good luck in starting down this road.  CPM looks forward to helping be a part of your journey.  Tune in next month as we examine the Care Coordination/Patient Safety sections of the ACO performance standards.

Posted in: Accountable Care Organizations 0 comments
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