Information health care organization

Professional pharmacy and medical organizations [e.g., the American Pharmacists Association (APhA), the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), the National Community Pharmcists Association (NCPA), and the American Medical Association (AMA)] and health care organizations [e.g., the American Diabetes Association (ADA) or the American Heart Association (AHA)] also provide valuable information about many health conditions and value-added services. This information is important not only in the development of a service but also in justifying the need for a service with consumers and administrators. These organizations also provide treatment guidelines and additional resources that can be used when developing an operations plan for a service (see Chapter 25). 

Costs of goods and services seem intuitively simple to quantify. However, a number of potentially complicated issues must be considered. When identifying the goods or services, will the actual cost (wholesale cost) to the pharmacy or health care organization be measured, or will the charge to the patient or payer (retail cost) be measured Sometimes access to cost data may be limited, or the data may be entirely unavailable. For instance, if Cynthia Marshall was using a hospital database to collect hospitalization and emergency department information for the HMOs heart failure patients, it may be impossible to isolate the actual costs related to heart failure, particularly if a patient was admitted for multiple reasons. 

State Adverse Event Tracking Systems. These systems are used by various U.S. state governments to monitor adverse events occurring in health care organizations. Two main impediments associated with these systems are the limitations in data and the lack of required resources. Additional information on these systems is available in Refs. [2,5]. 

Aligning with consumers includes rebuilding trust with victims of medical accidents who turn to the legal system and the media to fill the void that health care organizations create when they fail to disclose information after a medical accident. 

Focused Event Team. A focused event team will gather and review information about patient safety events for the purpose of evaluating and improving the quality of health care rendered in the institution and reducing morbidity and mortality. The focused event team is a peer review organization, established by The Health Care Organization under state statute, whose members will include the members of the Office of Patient Safety and other administrators and/or professional staff as designated by the vice president of medical affairs. 

Only physicians experienced in immunosuppressive therapy and management of organ transplant patients should prescribe daclizumab. The physician responsible for daclizumab administration should have complete information requisite for the follow-up of the patient. Daclizumab should only be administered by health care personnel trained in the administration of the drug who have available adequate laboratory and supportive medical resources. 

Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) URL http //www.kff.org E-mail web form Phone (650) 854-9400 2400 Sand Hill Road Menlo Park, CA 94025 A charitable organization that focuses on major health care issues facing the United States, including access to prescription drugs, by doing research and communicating facts, information, and analysis. 

A survey conducted by the Medical Records Institute in 2002 on health care practitioners concerns with the implementation of mobile technology devices and applications cited security/confidentiality when sending or receiving information and the lack of Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance as primary concerns by 50 and 34 percent of respondents, respectively. Confidentiality and security of information against unauthorized access must be HIPAA-compliant. A number of systems are available that can help a pharmacy organization to remain in compliance with HIPAA regulations. Pharmacists are required by law to use reasonable methods to ensure that protected health information remains... 

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