On June 20 at 11 a.m. (PT), the Hospital Quality Institute (HQI)
will host an
informational webinar about upcoming opportunities for
hospitals to participate in TeamSTEPPS, an evidence-based team
training program that helps hospitals improve their cultures of
safety, prevent medical errors, and enhance inter-professional
working relationships.
Over the weekend, the Legislature’s budget conference committee
completed its work of negotiating the differences between the
Governor’s, Assembly’s, and Senate’s budgets. The Senate and
Assembly now need to approve the final budget bill and the
accompanying trailer bills and send them to the Governor no later
than June 15, for his approval by July 1.
Every day, hospitals stand united to prevent and reduce violence.
To support today’s Hospitals
Against Violence national awareness day, Scripps Health CEO
Chris Van Gorder speaks
out on behalf of workplace and community safety in a new
CHA-produced video clip.
This week’s special elections yielded important results for
hospitals, including the defeat of a Los Angeles ballot measure
that would have taxed hospitals. Measure EE, proposed by the Los
Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), would have enacted a
parcel tax (a type of property tax ) to generate money that would
support smaller class sizes and staffing increases for the next
12 years. Hospitals in the LAUSD would have been subject to
the new tax.
With the Legislature required to send the Governor a final budget
no later than June 15, budget negotiations are in full swing at
the Capitol. The budget conference committee will address the
many discrepancies between proposals from the Senate, the
Assembly, and the Governor, with plans to complete its work by
the end of this weekend.
Yesterday, CHA
submitted comments on the Department of Managed Health Care’s
(DMHC)
draft guidance implementing its recently finalized Knox-Keene
licensure regulation. The
regulation greatly expands the types of financial
arrangements requiring a license, and hospitals are
encouraged to consult with counsel to determine how the new
requirements will impact their organization.
Last week, a federal district court
ruled that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
exceeded its statutory authority when it implemented a 30%
reduction to 2019 Medicare reimbursement rates — included in the
federal fiscal year (FFY) 2019 outpatient prospective payment
system (OPPS) final rule — for certain pharmaceutical drugs
covered by the 340B Drug Pricing Program.
San Francisco will become the first US city to effectively ban
e-cigarette sales, after the city’s board of supervisors
unanimously voted in favor of an ordinance Tuesday.
The ordinance says “no person shall sell or distribute an
electronic cigarette to a person in San Francisco” unless that
product has undergone premarket review by the US Food and Drug
Administration. To date, none have.
This includes sales in brick-and-mortar stores, as well as online
sales shipped to a San Francisco address. The ordinance also
applies to flavored tobacco products in addition to e-cigarettes.
The measure does not ban the use of vapes among people 21 and
older.
“This is a decisive step to help prevent another generation of
San Francisco children from becoming addicted to nicotine,” said
City Attorney Dennis Herrera in a statement, following the vote.
Burnout decreases and job fulfillment improves when physicians
work shorter rotations in the hospital, according to a new study.
The results, published Tuesday in the American Journal of
Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, found burnout was
substantially lower among critical-care physicians at Penn
Medicine who opted to shorten their clinical rotations from 14
consecutive days to seven days.
Patients’ out-of-pocket costs for inpatient services increased by
14% on average between 2017 and 2018, according to a new report
from TransUnion Healthcare.
Revenue-cycle management provider TransUnion revealed its
findings Tuesday during the Healthcare Financial Management
Association’s annual conference in Orlando, Fla. The company
tracks patients’ out-of-pocket costs annually across its roughly
1,800 hospital and health system clients.
Last year, patients who received inpatient care saw the biggest
hikes in their out-of-pocket costs. Patients’ deductibles and
co-pays averaged $4,659 for an inpatient visit in 2018, compared
with $4,086 in 2017.
Companies have embraced health surveys, biometric screenings and
other wellness offerings, as a way to keep employees healthy and
lower their overall medical costs.
President Donald Trump signed his highly anticipated executive
order on hospital and insurer
price transparency Monday afternoon, but the language leaves
wiggle-room for the agencies to decide what insurers and
hospitals will have to disclose.
A senior administration official told reporters Monday morning
that the CMS will decide via rulemaking whether hospitals and
insurers will need to publish individual rates or whether they
can keep their pricing information more general and publish only
aggregate rates.
The Senate health committee chair on Monday
amended its
suite of healthcare proposals to include the
Creates Act, aimed at boosting the generic-drug market, and
to raise the legal age for buying tobacco products to 21.
These two major additions to the package from committee leaders
Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) didn’t
come as a big surprise. The Creates Act
cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, and two
committees in the U.S. House of Representatives, but has not been
up for a floor vote yet. The bill would prohibit brand-name
manufacturers from keeping drug samples out of the hands of
generic competitors.
A study published in the journal
JAMA Internal Medicine on Monday suggests that the link is
strongest for certain classes of anticholinergic drugs –
particularly antidepressants, bladder antimuscarinics,
antipsychotics and antiepileptic drugs.
Certain common medications tied to 30% higher dementia risk,
study finds
Certain common medications tied to 30% higher dementia risk,
study finds
Researchers wrote in the study that “there was nearly a 50%
increased odds of dementia” associated with a total
anticholinergic exposure of more than 1,095 daily doses within a
10-year period, which is equivalent to an older adult taking a
strong
anticholinergic medication daily for at least three years,
compared with no exposure.
The aches and pains of arthritis — caused by inflammation in one
or more joints — afflict 1 in 4 American adults,
or 54.4
million people, according to a new report from the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention. Although arthritis becomes
more common with age, and develops more often in women than men,
the Arthritis Foundation says that about 300,000
American children also have some type of arthritis. The
swelling, pain and stiffness that accompany arthritis can lead to
movement problems, making it the country’s leading cause of
disability. It tends to worsen with age. More than 100 types
of arthritis exist, but the two most common
are osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. A
layer of cartilage normally acts as a cushion between bones that
meet in a joint, but its breakdown, often from basic wear and
tear over time, lets the bones rub together, causing the pain of
osteoarthritis. Knees and hips are common sites of
osteoarthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease
that develops when the immune system mistakenly attacks the
body’s own tissues, causing painful swelling in the lining of
joints, often the wrist and fingers. But rheumatoid arthritis can
affect more than joints, causing problems in such organs as the
lungs, heart and eyes.
Join us October 14-15 at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento
and learn strategies and take home tools for achieving reliable
care and delivering value to each patient, each time, and in each
community.
CHA’s digital community of more than 1 million supporters, has
been awarded two national health care advertising awards for its
promotion of one hospital’s efforts to care for homeless
patients, as well as its work to raise awareness of and
destigmatize mental health issues.
In an effort to reinforce to lawmakers the need to address
California’s severe health care workforce shortages, CHA just
completed a month-long social media campaign to position
hospitals’ leadership role in developing the current and future
health workforce.
Nearly 50 of California’s hospital and health system leaders
trekked almost 3,000 miles to D.C. to share with members of
Congress the legislative changes they need to successfully meet
their mission of care back home.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA) has released a series of resources intended to help
providers incorporate, in their disaster planning, strategies to
care for patients with serious mental illness.
CHA’s latest guidebook, Discharge Planning for Homeless
Patients, explains California’s new homeless patient
discharge planning law and offers insights to help hospitals
prepare to return homeless patients to the community.
July 23, Sacramento July 23, New Live Stream Option
July 25, Glendale
Significant changes to Medi-Cal and Medicare reimbursement are imminent – is your hospital ready? Over the past year, there’s been a lot of activity at federal and state level that will directly impact how hospitals are reimbursed, which can lead to transforming the way care is delivered in the future.
CHA’s Disaster Planning for California Hospitals conference is the largest statewide conference developed by and for California hospitals. Mark your calendars for this annual event where you will bolster your emergency preparedness knowledge and learn about innovative programs, tools and lessons learned from across the industry.
Throughout the year, CHA offers numerous programs designed to
meet the needs of hospital executives. Whether you work in human
resources, risk management, reimbursement, disaster planning or
plant operations we are likely to have a program that will help
you do your best for your facility.
CHA hosts events year-round that give providers of health care
services and products the opportunity to meet face-to-face with
hospital executive management. Our conference and symposiums each
have unique audiences — disaster planners and their teams,
medical rehabilitation experts, skilled nursing professionals,
behavioral health care providers and rural hospitals.
Learn about other opportunities to support hospitals andways to
get involved with the California Hospital Association.
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CHA’s EMTALA Manual explains the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) to minimize risk and help hospitals avoid lawsuits. The manual is full of sample scenarios and answers to hundreds of real-world questions, and provides practical guidance to hospitals, physicians, and nurses to simplify compliance with patient anti-dumping laws.
The 2018 edition has been updated to reflect five more years’ experience with the law, and:
CHA’s Hospital Compliance Manual is the only publication written for hospital compliance officers that integrates California with federal law on high-risk compliance areas. Written by Hooper, Lundy & Bookman, PC, and CHA, the manual focuses on high-risk compliance issues and the key components of an effective compliance program.
This comprehensive resource addresses all state and federal laws related to the privacy of health information, and provides guidance to help hospitals comply with increasingly complex regulations. Laws covered include:
