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House Committee Greenlights New Bill that Would Extend Hospital-at-Home, Telehealth Flexibilities
McKnight’s Home Care / By Adam Healy
A House Ways & Means health subcommittee on Wednesday unanimously approved a new bill that would extend the Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver by five years and pandemic-era telehealth flexibilities by two years.
The subcommittee’s bipartisan group of lawmakers voted 41 to 0 in favor of the “Preserving Telehealth, Hospital and Ambulance Act,” which was introduced on Tuesday. Representatives called out the need to extend the hospital-at-home waiver, which is set to expire at the end of 2024.
“Without this bill, beneficiaries will no longer be able to talk to their doctors or receive acute hospital care from the comfort of their home starting at the end of this year,” Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) said during the hearing. “Only a few short years ago, these possibilities seemed unthinkable, but are now revolutionizing care for seniors on Medicare and those living in rural areas.”
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services created the Acute Hospital Care At Home Waiver in November 2020 to free up hospital bed supply during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the years since, the hospital-at-home program has expanded. More than 300 hospitals across 129 health systems in 37 states are operating under the waiver. In March, more than 50 hospitals and home care firms sent a letter to House lawmakers asking them to extend the program.
Policymakers on Wednesday also approved of the bill’s support of telehealth flexibilities instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic. These flexibilities allow any Medicare-certified healthcare provider to furnish telehealth services to patients, even across state lines. The pandemic-era allowances are also set to expire at the end of the year, and likewise, stakeholders have called on policymakers to pass an extension.
Some lawmakers even expressed interest in making telehealth a permanent fixture in Medicare-covered services…
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Can AI Reduce Patient Violence Against Clinicians?
Modern Healthcare / By Gabriel Perna
Artificial intelligence is touted as a way to ease clinicians' workload. A hospital in Dallas is using it to keep them safe.
Parkland Memorial Hospital, the city's large safety-net hospital, is using AI to protect its doctors and nurses from violent patients. It joins a growing number of health systems deploying AI to tackle the pressing issue.
“We feel that workplace violence, particularly in healthcare, was an epidemic before the pandemic. But then with the pandemic, it just got even more pronounced,” said Steve Miff, CEO of Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation, the health system's research institute. “When you’re at the hospital, it’s one of most vulnerable times in your life. So, you can understand why it’s a setting that’s probably more primed for irrational behavior.”
A team from the research institute developed an predictive AI tool within its electronic health record to generate a risk assessment score that informs clinicians which patients are more likely to be violent.
The development of the AI tool comes as violence against doctors and nurses is on the rise. More than 80% of nurses said they experienced some form of workplace violence in 2022 and 2023, according to a February survey by National Nurses United. In a January survey by the American College of Emergency Physicians, 71% of emergency physicians said violence in the emergency department was worse in 2023 than in 2022.
The American Hospital Association has endorsed a bill that would make it a federal crime to attack healthcare workers in the process of doing their jobs.
Parkland has about 400 incidents per year that can include verbal threats, hair pulling, biting or hitting. Often, they are underreported by clinicians, Miff said.
“Just hearing the frontline staff stories is just heartbreaking because they're passionate about helping people and then they themselves become a victim,” Miff said…
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Draft OASIS E-1 Manual and Instruments
The draft Guidance Manual for the OASIS-E1 version of the OASIS data set, effective January 1, 2025, is available in the Downloads section of the OASIS User Manuals | CMS page, www.cms.gov/medicare/quality/home-health/.... The draft OASIS-E1 Instruments (All Items and Time Points versions) are available in a zip file in the Downloads section of the OASIS Data Sets | CMS page.
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ACHH Graduate Virtual Journal Club
When: Thursday, May 9, 2024 | 8:30pm - 10:00pm Eastern
The ACHH faculty have worked with the APTA Home Health Board to initiate a journal club exclusively for the PT and PTA graduates of the ACHH certification program.
The FREE ACHH journal club will take place three times a year on the second Thursday of January, May, and September. The first 30 minutes will be a happy hour of networking and discussion and then one member will lead a guided journal club. Participation in the club will carry points towards recertification, with one point for each club attended, to a maximum of 5, and 3 points for the individual leading the discussion. The club will be held virtually, and details and the link will be sent by the section to all graduates of the program. It is planned that the topics will rotate through different major areas such as neurological, cardiopulmonary, musculoskeletal and issues specific to PTAs.
The next event will be on Thursday, May 9, 2024. Any volunteers to lead journal discussions in the subsequent meetings will be appreciated. Remember - 3 points will be awarded towards your ACHH Certification Renewal if you volunteer to lead these discussions. If interested, please email us at [email protected].
ACHH program graduates, click here to register for free! |
Latest 'Quarterly Report' Available Electronically Now
The latest print issue -- Spring 2024 - Vol. 59 No. 2 -- of the APTA Home Health Quarterly Report is on its way to Academy members, however members can read it now on the Academy's Quarterly Report Library page (you must be signed in as a member to view this page). Not a member? Join us! |
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