Read the following scenario.
The patient is a 40-year-old female who presents to the emergency department for low back pain. The pain has been present for 2 weeks, and no injury has been noted. The patient has no history of previous low back pain. The emergency department immediately orders an MRI of the lumbar spine for low back pain. The patient waits in her room in the emergency department for 2 hours without anyone checking on her. She is finally told that the in-house MRI is down for maintenance, so she schedules an appointment for another day. The patient is at the emergency department for more than 280 minutes from arrival to discharge.
Two days later, the patient goes to her appointment for her MRI at the radiology department. She must register and provide all the same information that she has already given at the emergency department regarding her history and other pertinent information. The patient’s appointment was scheduled for 1 p.m., and at 1:45 p.m. she still has not been called back for her test. No one has updated her regarding the delay. Finally, the patient is taken back for her test at 2 p.m. and is not given any explanation for the delay except that the department is short-staffed. The patient is not happy about her experience at the radiology department.
When the patient receives her Explanation of Benefits from her insurance company, she realizes the MRI was not pre-certified correctly. Now she owes a large portion of the bill because the physician did not try other means, such as physical therapy, prior to receiving a costly MRI.
Access Medicare’s Hospital Compare website and complete the following steps:
Locate the Find a Hospital box.
Enter the ZIP Code and hospital name provided by your faculty member. 30815 > Acute Care > AU Medical Center
Select search.
Review the category tabs (e.g., General Information) at the top of the hospital’s profile to complete this assignment.
Complete the chart on the Using Data to Address Quality Measures worksheet using the data from Hospital Compare.
You are provided with 3 categories relevant to the scenario. If you would like to identify an additional measure(s) and data from Hospital Compare that relate to the scenario, please use the blank line item in the table or add another row(s).
Note: An example of how to pull data has been provided for you to review.
Write a 350- to 700-word paper that analyzes the measures that have an influence on the facility in the scenario.
Include the following in your paper:
Explain the measures and corresponding data listed in the table.
Provide the data table listing the measures and corresponding data points within the presentation.
Analyze 2 sources, in addition to Hospital Compare, that you would use to find public information on facilities regarding the measures presented in the scenario.
Select 1 measure from the data table and analyze how the quality of this measure could affect the facility in the scenario.
