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Yesterday, the moment us “policy wonks” have been waiting for since December finally arrived.  The final rules on the modifications to the Conditions of Participation (or “C-O-Ps” for short) were released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services!  Now, maybe this doesn’t sound terribly exciting, but for nurses and especially APRNs, this was a big deal.  Here’s the history -  the Conditions of Participation are the rules that hospitals must follow to get paid by Medicare.  As you might imagine, getting paid is important, so hospitals are very apt to follow them.  Also, these COPs are what accrediting agencies like The Joint Commission use to create their standards.  [more]

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have proposed health information technology (HIT) regulations to improve the usefulness of information written into electronic health records.  This set of rules called  Meaningful Use (MU) is now in its second stage.    To ensure that nurses, the largest group of healthcare professionals, have a voice in these proposed regulations, the American Nurses Association (ANA) has sent official comments to CMS.   Meaningful use stage 2 uses EHRs to improve care.  Stage 2  focuses on using EHRs in new ways to improve care safety, quality and efficiency, and to reduce cost.  For example, EHRs can collect data to capture quality measures (eMeasures).  eMeasures can efficiently be used to evaluate the input of all clinical members of the team.   The data collected will  inform evidence-based practice and the best team mix of clinicians and safe staffing levels that yields the best outcomes (e.g., reduced healthcare acquired conditions and readmissions).  The regulations specifically proposed new objectives, such as engaging and providing patients (and their identified caregivers) access to their EHR upon discharge from the hospital.  The proposed regulations also require information (e.g., problem list, medication list) to improve care transitions.  Nurses empower patients (and caregivers) in effective self-care and ensuring seamless care coordination upon hospital discharge, in transitional care between hospital and home or other settings, and in post-acute care/long term care (PAC/LTC) settings.  This is what nurses do.  [more]

From physician, former Aetna CEO and IOM Future of Nursing committee member, Jack Rowe, in The Atlantic –

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I attended the annual meeting of the Nurse Practitioner Association of Maryland (NPAM) in Baltimore last November.  As it happened, the Maryland Lieutenant Governor made an appearance to accept an NPAM Award.  In his remarks on new developments in the health care arena here in the State, he mentioned the patient-centered medical home demonstration then just getting under way.  I don’t recall his exact words, but he basically congratulated the NPs because under the demonstration they could get the chance to be the quarterback of the health care team.  [more]