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Adventist Health White Memorial in Los Angeles is one of six honorees nationwide to receive the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award, the nation’s only presidential award for organizational/business performance excellence.
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The Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) is accepting comments on its California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM) initiative proposal, the state’s multi-year initiative to redesign the Medi-Cal delivery system. Comments are due by Dec. 16.
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State public health employees must either have received the 2019-20 influenza vaccine or wear a mask when inside designated patient care areas during the influenza season, according to an All Facilities Letter (AFL) from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).
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The stigma around mental health issues and addiction is incredibly powerful. Five California hospital behavioral health program leaders share how they overcame their own personal challenges — and tell their stories to end the stigma.
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued several updates about its initiative to ensure safety and quality in nursing homes. Notably, CMS reports that updated interpretive guidance for Phase 3 of the Requirements for participation for long-term care facilities — effective Nov. 29 — will be released in the second quarter of 2020.
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CHA is pleased to announce its 2019 Model Medical Staff Bylaws and Rules are now available. The manual sets a framework for the working relationship of hospital medical staff, hospital administration and governing body, and assures legal protections are in place.
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) has issued an informal request for information to gather feedback on a potential new distinct payment model — the Oncology Care First Model — that builds on the current CMMI Oncology Care Model.
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This Thanksgiving, many of you might participate in a well-known tradition in which friends and family members, full of turkey and stuffing, go around the table and say aloud what they are thankful for.
Answers vary, but visit any table this Thursday and you wouldn’t be surprised at what you hear: my health, my family, food on the table each day, a warm place to sleep at night, love.
I too am deeply thankful that I have these things in my life.
It’s telling that the same themes come up at every table…perhaps because they are the building blocks of a good and happy life.
Sadly, millions of Californians don’t have this foundation.
Nearly 130,000 Californians do not know if they will sleep on the street or in a shelter tonight. Nearly 6 million Californians, including 2 million children, live in low-income households affected by food insecurity, not knowing where their next meal will come from.
You know well that these two factors alone make other life successes challenging, if not impossible. Health, family, love – are these possible without food and shelter?
Maybe, but it’s hard.
That’s why each year, when asked about what I’m thankful for, I also think of all of you – of hospitals.
For the Californians who will not be sitting at a table Thursday; for those who will sleep outdoors as temperatures dip into the low 40s; for those who struggle to answer what they are thankful for, I’m grateful they have you.
Every day, California’s hospitals demonstrate what it means to show empathy, kindness, and compassion to those in need: a social worker making a few extra calls to find an open bed for a patient experiencing homelessness; a street nurse program; an extra sandwich for someone who hasn’t eaten in a few days.
So, this year, when we go around the table at my house, and here in this message, I say thanks to you, the women and men who serve others at California’s hospitals – because often, you’re the only ones that those in need have.
From your California Hospital Association family, please know that you have our deepest gratitude for everything you do to give others something to be thankful for.
— Carmela
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California hospitals reported 2,428 fewer health care-associated infections in 2018 than in 2017, according to a newly released report from the California Department of Public Health.
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A proposal released last week by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) holds the potential to impact Medicaid programs in every state — one of the main reasons it’s likely to cause Medicaid agencies across the country to share their concerns with CMS.
The Medicaid Fiscal Accountability Rule could alter how Medicaid supplemental payments and related financing arrangements operate. If adjustments to current rules are made, hospital resources for patient care throughout the nation would be challenged.
While any changes to the Medicaid supplemental payments could affect California’s hospitals, it’s important to note that at this time, the proposal is quite far from becoming policy. There are multiple measures that your association, working alongside our colleagues in 49 other states and the District of Columbia, as well as the American Hospital Association (AHA), will take to protect critical Medi-Cal funds for your patients and communities.
First, we’ll be analyzing the rule and its potential impact on California.
Second, we’ll develop messages to deliver to CMS during the current 60-day comment period. Stay tuned for a request for help with this effort — we may need to ask hospital leaders to raise your voice as well, so federal regulators understand how these changes might impact the patients and communities you serve.
Finally, we’ll coordinate with other state hospital associations and the AHA on a national advocacy strategy. This rule will present challenges for dozens of governors, regardless of political party. That likely means a long and public debate about the very real dangers of the rule, where hospitals will have another chance to make clear that the proposal will do nothing to make Medicaid more fiscally accountable and will harm the low-income patients we serve.
The bottom line: this proposal could be bad news. But it’s got a long way to go, and its potential impact is so far-sweeping that there will be massive opposition to modify or defeat it altogether.
For now, we need to better understand the impact, relay our concerns to CMS, and work with our national colleagues on a sound strategy to ensure the resources you need to care for patients aren’t altered — especially as costs continue to rise.
— Carmela