6 Stories You May Have Missed: Care Coordination Animation – Paramedics Drive Down Readmissions – CMS IPPS Final Rule…

We know you’re busy, but we don’t want you to miss important healthcare quality and patient safety news. Below is a roundup of stories you may have missed this week and may want to take a look at before calling it a week. (Sign up on the right if you’d like these news alerts delivered to you.)

1. Instant Replay – A Quarterback’s View of Care Coordination
   The highlight of this piece is an awesome animation that illustrates how one PCP communicated with 12 other clinicians over an 80-day span to coordinate care for one patient. This stellar effort included 32 e-mails and 8 phone calls to partnering clinicians, 12 conversations with the patient or his wife, 5 procedures and 11 office visits made outside of the PCP’s office.
2. Paramedicine Initiative Reduces ED Visits, Readmissions, Costs
   According to an article published by HealthLeaders Media , New Hanover Regional Medical Center  in Wilmington, N.C. is one of the only hospitals in North Carolina not to be fined for excessive readmissions over the last two years, and the organization’s leaders believe continued implementation of a unique paramedic-driven readmission reduction project will ensure that statistic remains solid.
3. CMS Issues Final FY2015 Rule on Inpatient Hospital Payments
   Hospitals learned this week how they will be reimbursed for care provided to Medicare beneficiaries in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. The IPPS final rule for FY 2015 includes a 1.4 percent increase for operating payment rates as well as specifications for three penalties that can be incurred for poor quality performance.
4. Steve Jobs Didn’t Disrupt, He adapted. So Should Healthcare.
   Read about the theory of Adaptive Design developed by John Kenagy, MD, and why Dr. Kenagy believes the successful healthcare organizations of the future will be the ones that not only optimize their strengths but more importantly learn to do well what they don’t already know how to do.
5. A Physician Responds to OpenNotes Critics
   Family physician and blogger, Peter Elias, MC, explains the difference between a medical record and a diary as he points to fundamental ways that note-sharing should be used to improve physician/patient collaboration.
6. 3 Management Lessons from a Supermarket Debacle
   Nurse leaders and hospital administrators, take heed! From appreciating the impact of organizational culture, to understanding the need for nurses to serve in the highest leadership capacities, there is much to be learned from what’s taking place in New England’s grocery aisles.