MHA News Now

Read the latest edition of Mississippi Hospitals magazine

The latest edition of Mississippi Hospitals magazine (Spring 2012) is now available. Read articles about:

• Brachytherapy Treatment Gives More Than 1,000 Pine Belt Men a New Lease on Life
• Natchez Community Hospital displays new da Vinci® Si™ Surgical System
• Forrest General Offers Advanced Diagnostic Capabilities to Detect Lung Cancer
• NMMC Unveils First Hybrid Operating Room For Complex Surgeries
• Neshoba County General Hospital – Nursing Home Announces Groundbreaking Ceremony for New Hospital
• Critical Care: The Economic Impact of Hospitals on the State’s Economy
• UMHC Head, Neck Cancer Surgeons Use Robotic Surgery to Treat Tumors
• Batson Children’s Hospital Pediatric Emergency Department, Trauma Unit Triples in Size
• Relief from chronic cough can be found at River Oaks Hospital
• In Developing Rats, Antidepressant Exposure Linked To Brain, Behavioral Abnormalities
• Prematurity Awareness
• CMMC Cardiologist Performs Innovative Cardiac Procedures
• Hattiesburg Heart and Vascular Introduces Genetic Screening to Match Patients with More Compatible Medications

For more information on how to have your hospital news featured in this magazine, contact Shawn Rossi at (800) 289-8884, (601) 368-3237 or srossi@mhanet.org.

Download MHAed61

How HIPAA Misunderstandings Impede Transitional Care

Improving transitional care is a major challenge. Misunderstandings about HIPAA should not be one of the barriers. Make sure health care providers review and understand existing HIPAA policies and know who a patient's caregivers will be post-discharge. It's an investment in preventing an avoidable readmission.

Read more here.

FCC dedicates spectrum to Medical Body Area Networks

The Federal Communications Commission on May 24 adopted rules to enable Medical Body Area Networks, low-power wideband networks that can transmit patient data to a control device wirelessly through body-worn sensors. According to the FCC, the commission order allocates 40 MHz of spectrum at 2360-2400 MHz for MBAN use on a secondary basis, which will permit MBAN devices to operate on a “license-by-rule” basis in which users will not have to apply for and receive individual station licenses.

All MBAN use of the 2360-2390 MHz band will be subject to registration with an MBAN coordinator and additional coordination if warranted by location, and restricted to indoor operation at health care facilities, FCC said. However, MBAN devices that operate in the 2390-2400 MHz band will not require registration and coordination, and may be used in any location – including in-home residential settings.

Dale Woodin, executive director of the American Hospital Association’s American Society of Healthcare Engineering affiliate, said MBANs can provide many clinical benefits in the future, including more data than traditional telemetry, fewer signal limitations, and more patient mobility. FCC plans to appoint a frequency coordinator for the MBAN spectrum.

ASHE serves as coordinator for the Wireless Medical Telemetry Service, and is prepared to step into a similar role with MBANs, Woodin said.

Medicare Inpatient PPS: The Proposed Rule for FY 2013

CMS published its fiscal year 2013 proposed rule for the hospital inpatient and long-term care PPS in the May 11 Federal Register. The rule affects inpatient PPS hospitals, critical access hospitals, PPS-exempt cancer hospitals, and long-term care hospitals. In addition, this year, the rule contains proposals affecting ambulatory surgical centers.

The American Hospital Association is deeply disappointed that CMS has proposed two coding cuts that represent a total reduction of 2.7 percent, or $2.9 billion in FY 2013. They also are concerned regarding CMS’s approach to implementing the Hospital Readmissions Reduction program under which hospitals with higher-than-expected readmission rates will see reductions in their Medicare payments. The AHA has created a readmissions penalty calculator for hospitals to assess the impact of the policy on their organizations.

AHA has also published a Regulatory Advisory reviewing the key provisions of the proposed rule. If you are an MHA member and would like a copy, email Shawn Rossi at srossi@mhanet.org. The advisory has been added to the documents section in CEO and CFO communities on MHA Connect.

Direct-care workforce growth reflects shift from inpatient care

Direct-care workers will outnumber health care facility workers more than two-to-one by 2020, according to an analysis by the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute (PHI). Read more here.

Better communication translates to better patient safety, satisfaction

Providers who communicate well also do a better job at keeping their patients safe, suggests new research from HealthGrades. Researchers found that hospitals with the highest patient ratings in physician and nursing communications have fewer patient safety events, such as surgical inpatient deaths with treatable complications, pressure ulcers and post-operative respiratory failure and sepsis.

Read more here.

CMS reminds providers of pathology billing change effective July 1

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is reminding health care providers that independent laboratories may no longer bill Medicare directly for the technical component of physician pathology services furnished to hospital patients on or after July 1, when a statutory moratorium allowing the practice expires. The American Hospital Association supports passage of the Physician Pathology Services Continuity Act (H.R. 2461), which would allow Medicare to continue paying independent laboratories directly for the technical component.

Eliminating direct payment to independent labs would be especially burdensome for small and rural hospitals, which often lack the surgical volume necessary to support in-house services and instead rely heavily on independent labs for physician pathology services.

[ via AHA News Now ]