Case Study: Hays Medical Center
Hays Medical Center is a 194-bed tertiary-care center in Hays, Kansas. It is accredited by the Joint Commission, and in 2007, Hays reported on the CHF, PN and SCIP core measures sets. Although Hays has only been a member of IHM for about six months, the staff has already seen demonstrable benefits. Both the Medical Staff office and the Quality Improvement Department have found PQMS to be a helpful tool, particularly in meeting the new Joint Commission requirements for privileging and credentialing.
The Medical Staff office at Hays is responsible for determining the volume of procedures that each practitioner has performed since their last reappointment. The number of practitioners up for reappointment is determined by birth date; thus, the workload can range from as few as seven practitioners to as many as 20 in a given month. Before they used PQMS, the employees in Medical Staff office gathered data on procedure volume through a manual process as well as through the use of another software program. "I had to request information from several different areas of the hospital, gather all that information together, and put it on one form. The process took time," said Kay Werth of the Medical Staff office. With the PQMS reports, she has found that the process is more efficient. "Now I can zero right in on a specific procedure," said Werth. " It saves time, and getting the data has become much more convenient."
On the quality improvement side, PQMS has proven useful as well, according to Judith Purdy, RN, Director of Risk Management and Quality Improvement at Hays. The new Joint Commissionrequirements for privileging have prompted Hays to evaluate physician performance once quarterly, a process that has been aided by PQMS. "It meets the ongoing quality assessment requirement under the new Joint Commission standards quite nicely," said Purdy. "Numbers can be pulled once per quarter and put in front of the credentials committee to verify that we are indeed doing ongoing review of all our physicians." In addition to meeting the Joint Commission ongoing performance review requirement, the department heads at Hays have found PQMS useful for looking at performance within each specialty. "It really helps us to compare physicians in a group, like the family practice group or pulmonology group." said Purdy.
Both Purdy and Werth have found IHM to be easy to work with and very responsive to their questions. "I’m probably a pest sometimes," joked Werth. "Everyone has been very willing to help and answer all my questions." Purdy added, "I’m really looking forward to using IHM’s tools for core measures reporting in the future as well."
For more information about how IHM can work with your hospital, contact IHM today:
Jodie Imbriano | jodie.imbriano@healthmetrics.org | (516) 629-6368
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