By Cheri
During Dr. Don Wright’s update on the HHS Action Plan to reduce the rates of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) in the country at APIC 2009, he noted that before the problem can be fixed there were vast gaps in HAI knowledge. Some of the problems he brought up were:
- Patient Tracking: Many patients leave the hospital to reside in long term care or proceed with out patient treatments. If an infection develops as a result of a procedure/medical device that is implanted for these on going therapies, it is never tracked back to the hospital to be included in their HAI rates.
- Measurement: Hospitals report on infections in different ways. Catheter related blood stream infections, for example, can be reported on by the number of infections that occur over the number of days (infections/catheter days) or by the number of infections per catheters inserted (infections/catheters inserted). This makes it difficult to compare rates across hospitals.
- Infrastructure: The way the infrastructure is currently set up, information reported or plugged into one government system, cannot be easily formatted/extrapolated for another report.
There are certainly steps that need to be taken to help reduce rates of HAIs but it sounds like HHS has developed a comprehensive plan, taking into account the current system’s short comings, to find a solution.
June 10th, 2009
By Cheri
DiagnosisPR has made the trek to sweltering Fort Lauderdale to report on the latest trends in the broad field of infection control from the Association of Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) Annual Conference. This year’s show was kicked-off by an inspiring keynote presentation from Benjamin S. Carson, MD of Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions about turning challenges into triumphs. The audience walked away with new strategies for succesful infection prevention and control programs. With guidelines in place from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid where some hospital-acquired conditions are deemed non-reimbursable, infection control is top of mind for infection control specialists and the C-suite alike. Stay tuned for more coverage from APIC!
June 8th, 2009
By Cheri
This week’s World Health Care Congress has put healthcare reform at the center stage. Today, an impressive panel of Nobel Laureate Mohammed Yunus and Frank Rijsberman of Google met to talk about the sustainability of healthcare. The audience was able to hear Yunus’ view of reforming the healthcare in developing countries and ways to increase access to healthcare providers. Rijsberman provided his thoughts on improving the distribution of healthcare data, a space that Google has already made moves into. Further reporting on the panel can be found on the Healthcare Congress blog.
Additionally, X PRIZE has announced its latest contest with funding from WellPoint, seeking ideas “to create an optimal health paradigm that empowers and engages individuals and communities in a way that dramatically improves health value.” Written entries will be accepted over the next 18 months and five entries will be selected for a three-year experiment. The model will have to work across a community of 10,000 people and improve health by 50% in this three- year period. The winning entry will receive $10 million.
Will you be submitting or have thoughts about how this could be executed?
April 15th, 2009
By Palmer Reuther
DiagnosisPR is now on Technorati and Twitter. Follow and interact with us to get the latest news, updates and talk to us directly. Please let us know if you have any suggestions for topics.
Click here for our Technorati Profile.
Click here for our Twitter Profile.
April 9th, 2009
By Palmer
Welcome to the launch of Diagnosis PR, Racepoint Group’s healthcare-focused blog. A natural extension of the agency’s work in healthcare public relations, Diagnosis PR will provide you with analysis and commentary on developments, trends and issues in the healthcare industry.
It’s an honor to be writing the inaugural post but one of the first points that I’d like to make is that although we (the Diagnosis PR blogging team) could throw on scrubs or a white coat and attempt the bed-side manner of a physician, none of us should ever handle a scalpel. We are not doctors, nurses or healthcare professionals and have not played one on TV.
Billy Ray Cyrus contemplates treatment options
So, for a healthcare diagnosis please see your physician or consult Peyton Manning who seems to have some luck with the healing powers of dirt.
But, if you’re looking to chat about the healthcare industry you’ve come to the right place. Check out the Diagnosis PR bloggers’ bios – you’ll see that we all have experience in healthcare PR – some with medical devices, others with drug therapies and healthcare informatics. The team is always looking to engage in interesting dialogues about healthcare so if you’ve got a point of view, please don’t be afraid to share it.
You’ll be seeing a number of posts from Diagnosis PR team in the coming weeks so please come back often.
May 23rd, 2008
