It’s hard to believe that its already February. Consistent with the phrase “good things come in small packages”, February has lots of great things packed into just 28 (or this year 29) days!
- Black History Month
- Groundhog Day
- National Women Physicians Day
- Lunar New Year
- Super Bowl
- President’s Day
- Mardi Gras
- Ash Wednesday
- Valentine’s Day… and many more!
- Care Conferences and the Patient Progression Escalation Pathway – I want to make all physicians and APCs aware of a workflow that is important to our ongoing Length of Stay (LOS) work. This escalation pathway ensures the appropriate stakeholders are alerted as soon as possible for patients that may have complex situations as barriers to discharge. Providers should understand how to reach out to Case Management to facilitate care conferences and/or referral to complex case review to collaborate and develop plans for how best to address barriers to discharge. See the Patient Progression Escalation Pathway.
- Length of Stay (LOS) in 2024 – We closed out the year with some improvements, and St. Peter has started the year strong with a Financial LOS that (tentatively) met our goal for January (6.6 projected actual, goal 6.98)! At Centralia we have failed to meet our goal of 5.0 for January, coming in at 5.4 days. Our goals vary over the year and will get more challenging, starting in February (historic trends suggest that LOS peaks in December/January and nadirs sometime over the summer – FLOS goals for St. Peter and Centralia in February are 6.78 and 5.0 respectively). We need your help to maintain improvements in Geometric Mean Length of Stay Observed to Expected (GMLOS O:E), where we saw a 13.1% and 9.6% improvement for O:E to home from January to December 2023.
- Pharmacy Information – Our Credena pharmacy hours at St. Peter are Monday – Friday 8AM to 5:30PM and Saturday and Sunday from 8AM to 4:30PM. Having discharge medication orders into the pharmacy by 4PM allows them to get medications ready prior to closing for the day. For orders received after 4PM, they will do their best to get things ready before close; if you encounter a situation where you must order for discharge after 4PM, a member of the care team can call Credena to confirm that they can accommodate prior to sending the orders, or medications can be ordered at alternate local pharmacies that close at 7PM. Be sure to verify the patient’s preferred pharmacy for pickup prior to ordering medications; sending prescriptions to a different pharmacy creates additional work to “pull” those prescriptions back. We are continuing to work with our pharmacy colleagues where possible to gain efficiency and provide the best experience for patients and providers.
