Connected Health

At AVA and I am hearing a lot of discussion on UE DVT’s.  We all know this can be a complication of PICC line insertion, but how are we treating UE DVT’s?   Some nurses state “our docs want the

What quality measures will be used to evaluate hospitals for the Hospital VBP Program? Centers for Medicare and Medicaid has adopted 13 quality measures tracked in the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program for the fiscal year 2013.  The following table

What is the methodology behind the Hospital’s Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program? Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) will assess each hospital’s performance by comparing its achievement and improvement scores for each applicable Hospital VBP measure and awarding the higher score

Central-line associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) pose a immediate danger to vulnerable patents, infection prevention guidance is imperative for assisting acute care hospitals in prioritizing prevention efforts.  Approximately 41,000 cases of CLABSI occur in U.S. hospitals annually, increasing length of stay

Our Vascular Access Team has been looking at how to implement clinically indicated removal of the PIV vs routinely removing the device at 96 hours.  We first brought the idea to our Nurse Managers and DON.  We wanted to get

When it come to the Affordable Care Act and reimbursements, we need to understand the  programs and what they mean for our facilities: What is Hospital Value-Based Purchasing? The Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program is a Centers for Medicare &

When looking at  best practice for changing the peripheral IV,  are we considering that we are performing another invasive procedure on our patients? The INS (Infusion Nurses Society) standards published in 2011,  states that we no longer need to “routinely” change the patients

Recently the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its Healthcare Association Infection (HAI) report showing progress in reduction of HAI’s, however there is still room for vast improvement.  http://www.cdc.gov/hai/pdfs/stateplans/factsheets/wi.pdf The 2012 occurrence of Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infections (CLABSI)

Here is a great article on why we draw blood cultures, and what we do with it.  Please share with all new nurses and new staff.  I also found this as a good review for myself. http://labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/blood-culture/tab/test

Say congratulations to Fort HealthCare’s new PICC insertion team!  The team is comprised of Deb Roe, NP, Bridgett Piller, RN, Toni Clemens, RN, Gail Bishach, RN and Heather White, RN.  The team will also be adding their hospitalist.  These nurses