Presbyterian Hospital has long tracked clinical as well as financial metrics, and it compares favorably with other national and regional hospitals.
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Suzanne Walles, manager, PICS, and George Davis, MD, medical director, PICS.
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Publicly available data from CMS show that comparison. (See “National Quality Indicators: How Presbyterian Hospital Stacks Up,” p. 24.)
With care quality now reported so openly, Presbyterian Hospital’s administration, in conjunction with PICS leaders, is revising the PICS compensation package, which is now a combination of fixed salary plus productivity relative value units. The leaders are attempting to create financial incentives for order set usage and compliance with core measures.
At present, the PICS team manages about 70% of the internal medicine admissions at Presbyterian Hospital, and nearly all the medical cases at the Matthews and Huntersville sites. It is anticipated that the trend toward using hospitalists for inpatient management will continue. Further, it is likely that all orthopedic patients, or at least those with comorbidities, will be comanaged by the PICS team and their referring physicians.
Checklist for Change
The PICS team is instrumental in leading patient safety and quality improvement initiatives throughout the Charlotte, N.C., Presbyterian system. Among the operational improvement initiatives:
- Developing order sets in anticipation of computerized physician order entry;
- Working with the Institute of Healthcare Improvement’s 100,000 Lives Campaign. In particular assisting with the development of a medical response team and with medication reconciliation (www.ihi.org, click on “100,000 lives campaign”);
- Improving the care of hospitalized diabetics via participation in VHA’s Project Diabetes (VHA is a national alliance of nonprofit healthcare providers based in Irving, Texas);
- Helping develop a direct admission unit to reduce emergency department workload while providing better service for patients;
- Working with nursing to create a more team-oriented approach to inpatient management; and
- Working with the Operation Improvement group on initiatives to improve throughput.
Conclusion
Charlotte’s Presbyterian Hospital hospitalist program has grown rapidly. From its inception as an admitting service for busy community physicians, through an inpatient management team at the main hospital, to a group that now covers three hospitals and has specialists in orthopedics and neurology, the PICS team has learned to manage change and to grow successfully. More than 40 strong, they’re well equipped to keep pursuing the quest for quality, both at the hospital and as part of a national effort. TH
Writer Marlene Piturro is based in New York.