Facilities Management News

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Stepping in to fill the void

NEW YORK CITY—St. Vincent’s Catholic Medical Centers, a 160-plus-year-old institution in New York’s West Village, is closing its doors. And nearby hospitals are stepping up to fill the void.

Beth Israel Medical Center and Roosevelt Hospital are both modernizing their emergency departments, according to Continuum Health Partners, and increasing staffing. Likewise, they are expanding ours and services in their ambulatory care facilities. More than 120 physicians from St Vincent’s have been granted privileges to work and care for patients at Beth Israel and Roosevelt.

For more information, see www.wehealny.org

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Follow-up slows readmission, study finds

CHICAGO—Hospitals that have a higher rate of following up within one week for patients who were discharged after treatment for heart failure have a lower rate of readmission at 30 days for these patients, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Discharge from hospitals in which a greater proportion of patients received early follow-up was independently associated with lower rates of all-cause 30-day readmission.

For more information, see www.ama-assn.org

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Web portal explains health reform legislation

WASHINGTON, D.C.-- The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has launched Health Reform GPS, a comprehensive Web portal that offers users the information and insights needed to cover, analyze and implement recently passed health reform legislation.

Health Reform GPS will be a valuable resource for policymakers as well as journalists, researchers, policy analysts and health reform stakeholders looking for comprehensive information about all phases of the law and the process of implementation.

For more information about the project, a list of contributors, and to take a tour of the new Web portal visit, www.healthreformGPS.org

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Nurses’ numbers are growing

WASHINGTON. D.C.—The number of licensed registered nurses (RNs) in the United States grew to a new high of 3.1 million between 2004 and 2008 according to a report by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).

This increase of more than 5% also reflects growing diversity in the backgrounds of nurses in the United States. The survey found that the RN workforce is gradually becoming more diverse. In 2008, 16.8% of nurses were Asian, Black/African-American, American Indian/Alaska Native, and/or Hispanic; an increase from 12.2% in 2004. The two largest groups represented were non-Hispanic Asian (5.5%) and non-Hispanic Black/African-American (5.4%).

For more information, see www.hrsa.gov

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Little improvement in patient safety

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Improvements in patient safety continue to lag, according to the 2009 National Healthcare Quality Report and National Healthcare Disparities Report issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Very little progress has been made on eliminating health care-associated infections (HAIs), according to a new section in the 2009 quality report. For example, of the five types of HAIs in adult patients who are tracked in the reports:

• Rates of postoperative sepsis, or bloodstream infections, increased by 8%.
• Postoperative catheter-associated urinary tract infections increased by 3.6%.
• Rates of selected infections due to medical care increased by 1.6%.
• There was no change in the number of bloodstream infections associated with central venous catheter placements, which are tubes placed in a large vein in the patient's neck, chest, or groin to give medication or fluids or to collect blood samples.
• However, rates of postoperative pneumonia improved by 12%.

For more information, see www.ahrq.gov

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