Healthcare Financial News

With its recently released 2008 Leapfrog Hospital Survey, the Leapfrog Group has added a way for hospitals to be certain that their computerized provider order entry (CPOE) prescribing systems are actually catching errors. Developed in partnership with First Consulting Group and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, Leapfrog’s CPOE evaluation tool enables hospitals to determine how well their system alerts users to common, serious prescribing errors. The 2008 survey requires hospitals to test their CPOE system in order to obtain the survey’s highest CPOE rating.

Risk-adjusted efficiency measures also have been added to the survey to evaluate how efficiently hospitals use resources for coronary artery bypass graft, percutaneous coronary interventions such as angioplasty, acute myocardial infarction, and pneumonia. Among other changes to the 2008 survey, the number of safe practices evaluated was reduced from 30 to 13 to focus on those that have the strongest evidence, are auditable, and are not measured in another way in a different section of the survey.

Hospitals complete the self-administered survey beginning in April; individual results begin to be posted on The Leapfrog Group web site in July. Aggregated and analyzed results are published in the fall, along with the annual Leapfrog Top Hospitals list. Read the summary.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) announced on April 22 the creation of the RWJF New Careers in Nursing Scholarship Program, designed to alleviate the nation’s nursing shortage by dramatically expanding the pipeline of students in accelerated nursing programs. Scholarships in the amount of $10,000 each will be awarded to 1,500 entry-level nursing students over the next three years. Preference will be given to students from groups underrepresented in nursing or from a disadvantaged background.

Through the program, funding will be available to schools of nursing with entry-level accelerated programs at the baccalaureate and/or master’s degree level(s). By bringing more nurses into the profession at those levels, the new scholarship program also hopes to address the nation’s nurse faculty shortage. Data from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration show that nurses entering the profession at the baccalaureate level are four times more likely than other nurses to pursue a graduate degree in nursing, which is the required credential to teach.

AACN will serve as the national program office for this RWJF-funded initiative and will oversee the grant application submission and review processes. Read the press release.