Webcasts 0- 1:00 p.m.

Nurse Sensitive Quality Indicators (NSQI): Technical Components

October 3, 2008 -- Noon - 1:00 p.m.

As follow up to the webcast held on September 23, the next phase of the Washington State Hospital Association's (WSHA) collaborative effort to examine nurse staffing is about to begin. Part of the Memorandum of Agreement WSHA and Northwest Organization of Nurse Executives (NWONE) signed with the nursing unions, was to encourage all hospitals to report data on five selected nurse sensitive quality indicators. Five indicators were selected: patient falls, patient falls with injury, pressure ulcers, and two staffing indicators. Beginning in October, all Washington hospitals will be asked to report this data.

This webcast for project leads, data entry staff, and other system users will discuss the technical aspects of reporting and using the system.

2008 Annual Meeting Presentations

Nurse Sensitive Quality Indicators (NSQI): Definitions and Reports

October 2, 2008 -- Noon - 1:00 p.m.

As follow up to the webcast held on September 23, the next phase of the Washington State Hospital Association's (WSHA) collaborative effort to examine nurse staffing is about to begin. Part of the Memorandum of Agreement WSHA and Northwest Organization of Nurse Executives (NWONE) signed with the nursing unions, was to encourage all hospitals to report data on five selected nurse sensitive quality indicators. Five indicators were selected: patient falls, patient falls with injury, pressure ulcers, and two staffing indicators. Beginning in October, all Washington hospitals will be asked to report this data.

This webcast for nurse executives, quality leaders, project leads and other interested parties will provide additional information on the NSQI definitions and will discuss the reporting tool.

Click here for Nursing Sensitive Measure Definitions.

Overview of Nurse Sensitive Quality Indicators (NSQI) Project

September 23, 2008 -- Noon - 1:00 p.m.

The next phase of the Washington State Hospital Association's (WSHA) collaborative effort to examine nurse staffing is about to begin. As part of the Memorandum of Agreement WSHA and Northwest Organization of Nurse Executives (NWONE) signed with the nursing unions, we agreed to encourage all hospitals to report data on five selected nurse sensitive quality indicators. After surveying hospitals to determine what measures hospitals are already collecting, the steering committee overseeing the agreement selected five: patient falls, patient falls with injury, pressure ulcers, and two staffing indicators. Beginning in October, all Washington hospitals will be asked to report this data.  

 WSHA will hold a webcast on September 23 from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. for Chief Executive Officers, Chief Nursing Officers, and Chief Financial Officers to provide additional project information, discuss the reporting tool, answer any questions, and ask hospitals to enroll.

Click here for Nursing Sensitive Measure Definitions.

CEO Selection: Getting it Right

September 18, 2008 -- Noon - 1:00 p.m.

The Washington State Hospital Association invites board members and executive team members to take part in a web cast on a topic of great importance to both boards and executives: the hiring and maintenance of high quality chief executive officers. Specifically, this web cast has three objectives:

• CEO selection
• CEO employment agreement
• CEO orientation and acceleration

The Ins and Outs of Dealing with Medicaid Audits

• An overview of the basic audit processes and procedures.
• How to interact with the HRSA auditors and respond to their record requests.
• "Lessons learned" from recent audits of Washington state hospitals.
• The proactive steps you can take now to prepare your facility for this audit.
• Effective ways to challenge (if necessary) your audit results.

Medicare Linkage: Quality and Payment

Eliminate the Mystery and Expense of Fair Market Value in Physician Relationships

July 23, 2008 -- Noon -1:00 p.m.

Are you getting tangled up between successfully recruiting the right physicians to meet service needs and the complex federal regulations on how you pay for services rendered? This session will provide insights into the determination of fair market value financial terms, and an overview of an innovative program designed to help hospital better manage the dynamics and major expense of FMV compliance.

A Rural-Urban Partnership for Emergency Cardiac Care

June 4, 2008 -- Noon -1:00 p.m.

The Washington State Hospital Association is pleased to present a web conference discussing the pioneering work done between Lincoln Hospital, Davenport, and Sacred Heart Medical Center and Children's Hospital, Spokane, to dramatically improve the time for diagnosis, transportation, and treatment of Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) patients from rural Lincoln County. This web conference will be of great benefit to urban and suburban hospitals.

Medicare Recovery Audit Contractors: What You Need to Know Now

May 19, 2008 -- Noon -1:00 p.m.

Staff from WSHA and the American Hospital Association (AHA) will host a webcast on Medicare Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs). Hear the latest on what your hospital can expect as the RACs begin operation in our area (potentially scheduled for January 2009). The webcast will discuss:

• What has been the experience so far where RACs are operating?
• What can your hospital do to be prepared?
• What are the tools that can be used to minimize possibility of future denials?
• What is AHA doing on the political front to make this new audit process more reasonable?

Click here to view the AHA Advisory.

(Note: the Powerpoint is a large file. It may take some time to download)

WSHA Governing Board Series: Medical Staff Privileges and Credentialing

April 3, 2008 -- Noon -1:00 p.m.

The Washington State Hospital Association and the Association of Washington Public Hospital Districts are pleased to present a web conference covering the topic of Board Responsibility for Medical Staff Privileges and Credentialing. Specifically, this presentation will cover:

• Board Responsibility for medical staff members.
• Credentialing/Privileging.
• Corrective action and peer review.

WSHA & NWONE Nursing Web Conference - Implementing the Nurse Staffing Agreement

Through a mediation process sponsored by the Ruckelshaus Center, the Northwest Organization of Nurse Executives (NWONE); SEIU Healthcare, 1199NW; the United Staff Nurses Union, Local 141 UFCW; the Washington State Hospital Association (WSHA); and the Washington State Nurses Association recently agreed on a joint strategy for addressing nurse staffing issues. This mediation resulted in two documents: nurse staffing legislation and a Memorandum of Agreement.

This webcast is for NWONE & WSHA members only. For a copy of this PowerPoint, please call 206-577-1826.

How to Chair a Great Meeting: 10 Things the Chair Must Do to Be Successful

The Washington State Hospital Association & the Association of Washington Public Hospital Districts are pleased to present a web conference to help make committee chairs' jobs easier and your meetings more productive. Specifically, this webcast has three objectives:

• Help board and committee chairs be confident and competent--Foundation chairs, too!
• Help board and committee members who are likely to become chairs be prepared when elevated.
• Help executive staff work with chairs more effectively.

Washington State Living Will Registry

The 2006 Washington legislature passed a bill to create an electronic registry for healthcare directives to facilitate end of life planning. he registry is now in full operation and individuals have begun storing their documents in the registry. Hospitals can expect to see an increasing number of patients who have stored documents in the registry and wish their care givers to access the documents as part of their care. Carol Wozniak, Living Will Registry Manager, Washington State Department of Health discusses how individuals deposit their documents in the registry and how providers can access an individual's directory documents with proper authorization.

Preparing for the 2008 Washington Legislative Session

The 2008 session of the Washington State Legislature will convene on January 14, 2008. Many issues are at stake for hospitals and health care during this session. Among the key issues are nurse staffing, tax exemptions for non-profit hospitals, end-of-life issues, and hospital Medicaid rates.

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Safe Patient Handling

Information for hospitals on how to comply with Washington's Safe Patient Handling law.

Medicare Inpatient Hospital Payment

Governing Board Orientation & Development

The Washington State Hospital Association & the Association of Washington Public Hospital Districts are proud to present a web conference to provide board members with the recipes to design highquality orientation and continuing education programs for boards.

Balanced Scorecard

Michael D. Pugh, President and CEO of Verisma Systems, will focus his presentation on the board's role and responsibility in defining expectations and monitoring organizational performance. Beyond just financial budgets and indicators, performance includes clinical performance, patient safety and community benefit. Scorecards and dashboards of high level performance indicators can be effective governance tools. In addition, Michael will discuss the Governing Board's role in setting expectations and provide examples of how governing boards are beginning to use a dashboard of key metrics to drive strategy, prioritize improvement efforts, and assess leadership effectiveness.

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2007 Legislative Session

 The 2007 session of the Washington State Legislature will convene on January 8, 2007. Many issues are at stake for hospitals and health care during this session. Among the key issues are restrictions on specialty hospitals, funding for inpatient mental health, hospital Medicaid rates, covering all kids by 2010, and nurse staffing issues. (January 11, 2007)

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Protecting Health Information and Responding to Data Thefts 

In recent months, information about thousands of patients in Washington and elsewhere has been stolen from hospitals or has been reported missing. These incidents have resulted in criminal prosecutions, investigations by the federal Office for Civil Rights, and private lawsuits. The costs of investigation, remediation and defense are extraordinary. (Dec. 11, 2006)

Proposed Changes to Medicaid Hospital Rates

In 2005, the Washington State Legislature instructed the Health and Recovery Services Administration (HRSA) to study and make recommendations on the Medicaid inpatient payment system. HRSA hired Navigant Consulting Inc. to perform this analysis. Navigant has finished its work, and is recommending significant changes to the Medicaid payment system. The effect on some hospitals will be significant.

The Powerpoint Slides and an archive of the presentation are available to hospital members. If you would like access to these materials, please call 206-216-2510.

Specialty Hospitals Mean Special Challenges

Community hospitals have had concerns over specialty hospitals for years. In early 2003, an application for a Certificate of Need to build a specialty hospital in Tacoma was filed. WSHA and its members fought for legislative policy to prevent the building of specialty hospitals, winning a one-year moratorium in the 2005 legislative session. That moratorium expired July 1.

Some Washington hospital CEOs and boards are nearly certain that key groups of physicians will soon file for a CON to build specialty hospitals. For many hospitals, such a development will be like the Pontiac Division of General Motors saying, "We're out of here. We are taking our revenue and profits and going it alone. Good luck without us."

Doug Ross and Ed Rauzi from Davis Wright Tremaine law firm give members guidance on what hospitals can do (and what they can't) if they are faced with such news.

(To request a copy of these slides, please call 206-216-2514.)

Quality and Reimbursement Now Linked: New Medicare Rule and the Impact Quality Reporting Will Have on Payment

Roundtable Web Conference

The proposed Medicare inpatiend payment rule expands the number of measures that need to be submitted from ten to twenty-one, including measures for surgical infection. If hospitals do not provide the expanded data set, they could lose two percent of their Medicare payments. The validity of the hospital's abstraction process will also become critical to maintaining full Medicare payment. This web conference addresses the requrements in the Medicare rule for prospective payment, the criteria for getting the full payments, and what the abstraction validity reports mean. It also addresses what you should be expecting from your data vendors now and in the future in order to meet these requirements.

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Medication Reconciliation

One of the six interventions of the IHI 100K Lives Campaign is to reduce adverse drug interactions through medication reconciliation. It is also a requirement for JCAHO 2006 as a patient safety goal. In this presentation you will hear from Rick Croteau, Executive Director of Patient Safety Initiatives for JCAHO, about the best practices they have seen as they have traveled around the country surveying hospitals on medication reconciliation.

The content of the slides in this webcast is the property of the Joint Commission International Commission on Patient Safety. They slides are provided for reference only. Please do not republish them in whole or part without permission.

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2006 Legislative Session

The 2006 session of the Washington State Legislature convened in January. Many issues are at stake for hospitals and health care during this session. Among the key issues are restrictions on specialty hospitals, funding for inpatient mental health, hospital Medicaid rates, and medical liability reform after the defeat of Initiatives 330 and 336. Topics covered in the webcast: who's in leadership and key positions that affect hospitals; what's in (and what's cut in) the Governor's budget; key policy initiatives WSHA will be advocating in the 2006 session; and what kind of action we will be asking you to take during the course of the session.

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Talking to Your Community About Patient Safety

Hospitals face increasing questions from the media and the public about patient safety and quality. Our statewide poll told us that while the image of hospitals is overwhelmingly positive, Washingtonians want more information about what hospitals are doing regarding patient safety and quality. The webcast goes over poll results, understanding the research-based key messages on patient safety, and learning how you can put them to use when talking to the media, hospital boards, community groups, staff meetings, and other public forums.

Note: The content of this webcast will be similar to the content of the media / communications trainings on patient safety conducted around the state.

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Patient Safety and Quality:

A Draft Speech for Your Staff, Board, and Community

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Medication Reconciliation: Understanding Regulations & Keys to Successful Implementation

Medication reconciliation to reduce adverse drug interactions is one of the six interventions of the IHI 100k Lives Campaign. It is also a requirement for JCAHO 2006 as a patient safety goal. Ineffective medication reconciliation causes up to 50% of the medication errors which occur at admission and up to 20% of future adverse drug events. This web conference focuses on: JCAHO medication reconciliation requirements and survey processes, communication strategies for developing support and implementation.

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Press Release

Washington Hospital Image Public Opinion Poll

In May, the Washington State Hospital Association (WSHA) and the Association of Washington Public Hospital Districts (AWPHD) conducted a statewide public opinion poll on the image of Washington's hospitals. A representative sample of Washington residents were asked a series of questions about the quality of care available at hospitals in our state. The results are overwhelmingly positive, more than 80 percent of Washingtonians are satisfied with the care they receive at hospitals. This presentation gives an overview of the findings.

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Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia & Central Line-Associated Infection

Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia (VAP) and Central Line-Associated Infection are two of the most common infections in hospitals. The good news is that these infections can be virtually eliminated through the implementation of a group of care techniques or "bundle". Several hospitals in the state of Washington have already implemented this bundle and have virtually eliminated ventilator-associated pneumonia and central line-associated infection. In this web conference, we highlight the experiences of Overlake Medical Center and Swedish Medical Center and provide information on how to implement these techniques in your hospital.

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Rapid Response Teams

Rapid Response Teams are one of the most effective measures hospitals can take to reduce preventable mortality in the hospital. Rapid Response Teams are summoned at any time by any staff in the hospital to assist in the care of a patient who appears acutely ill, before the patient has a cardiac arrest or other adverse event. In this web conference on Rapid Response Teams we highlight the experiences of Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle and Kadlec Medical Center, Richland. We also provide discussion on how to implement this in rural hospitals.

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Surgical Clinical Outcomes - Assessment Program (SCOAP)

The Washington State Health Care Authority will soon require any hospital providing care to state employees and performing certain general surgical procedures (including colectomies, appendectomies, and bariatric surgery) to participate in the Surgical Clinical Outcomes Assessment Program. This program, patterned after the Clinical Outcomes Assessment Program for cardiac surgery, is designed to improve outcomes of general surgical procedures across the state. This web cast will provide hospitals an opportunity to learn about this rapidly developing program.

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The Hospital Quality Initiative: Preparing for Public Reporting

In the Spring of 2005, hospital data collected under the Hospital Quality Initiative (HQI) was released to the public. The Washington State Hospital Association, Qualis Health, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will actively support and promote the public launch. We believe the launch will generate a good deal of media attention. This web conference was done in preparation for the public release. Topics covered included: opportunities to preview your data, launch activities, purchased advertising, and how to respond to the media.

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Workforce Development Councils: Local Resources for Hospital Workforce Needs

Do you know you local Workforce Development Council Director? Each year, these people direct tens of millions of dollars on work force services covering everything from employee training to helping young people begin their careers. If you don't have a relationship with them and understand how they work, you could be leaving valuable resources on the table.

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2005 State Legislative Session

During the 2005 legislative session, many issues were at stake for hospitals and health care. Two key issues were the 2005 - 2007 state budget and medical liability reform, in particular Initiatives 330 and 336.