Creating Powerful Discharge Planning

How Superior Discharge Planning Avoids Penalties and Promotes Quality Healthcare

About the Webinar

Program Objectives

Webinar Will Answer These Questions

Attend from your desktop or conference room. Invite your whole team to attend!

Rate: $329 per location, includes unlimited access to CE portal and continuing education credits. Special rate available for solo practitioners and the military. Please call 301-354-1769 for details.

Each registration comes with access to the archived version of the program and the materials until December 31, 2012.

Continuing Professional Education: This program is approved for 1.5 contact hour for nurses, social workers, and certified case managers

Starting a robust discharge planning program – or strengthening an existing one – can produce benefits far beyond a smooth and seamless transition for a patient. Top-flight discharge planning can boost a patient’s adherence and preparedness, streamline follow-up care and reduce costly readmissions, improving patient and family satisfaction and saving hospitals and facilities large sums of money.

Federal laws mandate that hospitals have a discharge planning program in place, but they don’t stipulate which kind of process a facility must have. In light of the penalties that can be leveled for poor readmission rates, the case for a thorough discharge planning program speaks for itself.

Join us on October 17, 2012, from 12:00-1:30 p.m. (ET) as we bring a panel together who will discuss how organizations are taking a positive approach to discharge planning and are showing positive outcomes that are improving the patient experience and avoiding costly penalties.

About the Webinar

Poorly managed transitions of care can diminish health and increase costs. Researchers have estimated that inadequate care coordination, including management of care transitions through the continuum of care and inadequate discharge planning is responsible for $25 to $45 billion in wasteful spending in 2011 through avoidable complications and unnecessary hospital readmissions.

As you know, patients are discharged quicker and many times sicker than ever before. Having an effective discharge planning process in place is one of the components that can be used to identify those at risk in order to improve the transition of care process, reduce avoidable readmissions, help in the recovery process, ensure medications are prescribed and given correctly, and adequately prepare the family to take over their loved one's care once discharged.

Discharge planning is not only a key component of the transition of care process but is also recognized as a vital aspect of the patient's care and recently has been labeled as a patient's right. Discharge planning is defined as the process by which the patient and family is assisted to develop a plan of care for ongoing maintenance and improvement of healthcare, even after he or she may be discharged from the acute care hospital. Sometimes referred to as continuity of care or transition of care, discharge planning seeks to provide services that will enable the patient to become as independent as possible.

A fresh and positive approach to assist organizations in improving care for patients and their families was introduced by the Picker Institute, an organizations committed to enhancing the delivery of patient-centered care across the healthcare continuum.

Based upon a review of existing efforts to measure and improve patient-centered care, the Institute has determined that an organizing principle that is focused on a concept called Always Events® should be implemented to drive the system to become more patient-centered. The Picker Institute notes that in contrast to the well-known “Never Events” that refer to incidents that should never happen in the delivery of care, patient-focused Always Event® are aspects of the patient and family experience that should always occur when patients interact with healthcare professionals and the delivery system.

In our October 17, 2012, webinar, we will hear from representatives from organizations recognized by the Always Events® Recognition Program sponsored by the Picker Institute for their innovative approaches to Discharge Planning. The panel will share how their programs have improved the discharge process, enhanced patient and family satisfaction as well as improve the quality of care.

Program Objectives

Describe the role discharge planning plays in transition of care for patients, families and providers.
Explain two discharge models that have improved care coordination and reduced avoidable readmissions.
Outline strategies that can be used to educate and empower consumers to understand their role in the discharge planning process.

Our Webinar Will Answer These Questions

What is effective discharge planning?
What is so much emphasis put on discharge planning?
What is the role of the patient and family in the discharge process?
How can patients and families be more engaged in the process?
What metrics are organizations using to evaluate their discharge planning process?
Who do patients and families connect with when the discharge plan is not meeting the needs of the patient

Faculty

Kristina Andersen, BSN, RN, the SMART Discharge Project Coordinator for Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Md., was hired at Anne Arundel Medical Center in 2002 as a new graduate nurse on the Joint and Spine Center. In 2004, she was asked to perform the role of charge nurse on an interim basis, but quickly earned the title of Unit Charge Nurse. In that role, Kristina served on various unit and hospitals committees and councils, including Chair for the hospital-wide Charge Nurse committee. Most recently, she was selected to serve as Project Coordinator for the SMART Discharge protocol, an initiative funded by a Picker Institute grant. In this position, she works with patients, families, and hospital staff to develop, coordinate and initiate the SMART discharge protocol.

Joanna Kaufman, RN, MS, a member of the Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care team, collaborates on a variety of projects that involve research, writing, editing, and analysis. She is a writer and editor of the Institute's newsletter, Pinwheel Pages, the Institute's website, and is a contributing writer for New Health Partnerships.

Joanna is a registered nurse with more than 20 years of pediatric clinical and patient- and family-centered care experience gained in the trenches of Strong Memorial Hospital, Charity Hospital of New Orleans, and Johns Hopkins Hospital. She is the former Executive Director of a SPRANS Project (Special Project of Regional and National Significance) funded by the Department of Health and Human Services Bureau of Maternal/Child Health, and the former Vice-President of Quality Management for a managed care organization exclusively serving children with special health care needs. Joanna has served as a grant reviewer for numerous federal agencies. She was a member of the editorial advisory boards for two professional journals, serves as a reviewer for the Journal of Adolescent Medicine, and was a board member for both the Case Management Society of America and the National Association for Home Care. In 2009, Joanna became a registered World Health Organization Patients for Patient Safety Champion.

Deborah Wachenheim, MS, BS, is the Health Quality Manager at Health Care for All (HCFA) in Boston, Mass. In this position, she is working to involve consumers in advocacy for healthcare quality improvement in Massachusetts. Wachenheim also represents HCFA on the advisory committee to the Massachusetts Quality and Cost Council, on the Massachusetts Healthcare-Associated Infections Technical Advisory Group, and at various quality workgroups. She has presented about her work at the annual Families USA Conference and the National Patient Safety Foundation’s Annual Congress.

Wachenheim has a B.S. from Cornell University and a Masters in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Carrie Brady, JD, MA
Principal, CBrady Consulting

Carrie Brady is an independent consultant who partners with healthcare organizations to develop creative solutions to their operational challenges. For more than fifteen years, Carrie has worked with clinical and administrative leaders and frontline caregivers in hospitals around the country to improve the patient and staff experience, enhance quality and safety, and ensure regulatory compliance. Carrie is a member of the consulting team for the Picker Institute’s Always Events® initiative, a national program designed to advance patient-centered care through identification and consistent implementation of practices that are so important to patients and families they should always occur. Carrie’s prior experience includes leadership positions in two provider associations in which she was responsible for a wide range of strategic initiatives, including as Vice President of Quality at Planetree, an international network of hospitals and other healthcare organizations committed to patient-centered care, and as a Vice President of the Connecticut Hospital Association.

Moderator:
Anne Llewellyn RN-BC, MS, BHSA, CCM, CRRN
Editor in Chief, Case Management Products
Dorland Health, a division of Access Intelligence

Who Should Attend

Behavioral Health Counselors
Case/Care Managers
Clinical Nurses
Discharge Planners
Disability Management Specialists
Managed Care Directors

Nurse Practitioners
Patient Advocates
Physician Assistants
Physicians
Pharmacists
Social Workers

Purchase Options

$329 per location, unlimited viewing per location. A special rate is available for solo practitioners and the military. Please call 301-354-1769 for promo code for a price reduction if you qualify.
Live Webinar Registration – $329 (per-site fee)
Webinar Recording on CD-ROM – $329
Live Webinar and CD-ROM – $379

Continuing Professional Education

Nurses: This program is approved for 1.5 contact hours for nurses by Commonwealth Educational Seminars (CES). As an approved provider by the California Board of Registered Nursing (Provider Number CEP 15567), CES Programs are accepted by every State Board of Nursing with the exception of Delaware.

Certified Case Managers: This program is approved for 1.5 contact hours for case managers through the Commission for Case Manager Certification.

Social Workers: This program is approved for 1.5 CE hours for Social Workers. Commonwealth Educational Seminars (CES) is approved as a provider for Social Work Continuing Education (ACE Provider #1117) by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB, 400 South Ridge Parkway, Ste B, Culpepper, VA 22701) www.aswb.org. ASWB Approval Period: 10/6/09-10/5/12.

Questions?

For questions regarding the Webinar or to register by phone, contact Hope Kabik at 301-354-1769.

For content questions regarding this Webinar, contact Anne Llewellyn at 954-254-2950 or email allewellyn@dorlandhealth.com.

*Dorland Health does not offer any refunds for the webinar. All sales are final.

For technical support questions, you can contact the Webex technical support line at 1.866.229.3239.

How Does the Webinar Work?

The live audio is delivered to your location over the telephone or your computer speakers. The Power-Point presentations are presented over the Internet and are available to print out before the program. This is like a talk-radio program with visuals on the Web. You and your team will be able to have a live Q&A with all the speakers.

More details on webinar equipment and connections