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The Hospitalist. 2010 July;2010(07):

July 1, 2010 | The Hospitalist

The Approach: Gain Traction, Results

Rather than forcing a one-size-fits-all process on every hospital site, Project BOOST provides individual hospitals with the capacity and experience necessary to implement processes that best fit their unique situation.

Project BOOST sites participate in a two-pronged program consisting of a yearlong, one-on-one mentorship with the leaders in the field. It begins with an intensive, two-day conference and the Project BOOST toolkit.

The toolkit includes printed materials and a new DVD for use by hospitalists and other care providers to facilitate communication with patients and caregivers during discharge.

New case studies published by SHM document some of the program’s earliest successes.

At Piedmont Hospital, a 481-bed acute-care hospital near Atlanta, the full implementation of Project BOOST in one hospital unit has improved many of its “vital signs” in comparison with units that have not implemented BOOST, including decreased length of stay and lower 30-day readmissions (see “Piedmont Hospital: Project BOOST unit vs. regular hospital units,” p. 6).

For St. Mary’s Medical Center, a 582-bed community teaching hospital in St. Louis, hospitalists implementing Project BOOST made a major difference in just three months:

Not only did the Project BOOST unit nearly halve 30-day readmissions (7% from 12%), but the program also increased patient satisfaction, to 68% from 52%.

BOOSTing into the Future

Project BOOST benefits haven’t been limited to program sites and their patients. New innovations from the mentored implementation program have led to resources that all hospitals can use.

SHM recently introduced a new DVD and curriculum package that teaches nurses and discharge planners to use the “teachback” method to communicate with patients during the discharge process. It helps ensure that patients fully understand their care plans and post-discharge instructions.

The teachback package is available at the SHM online store (www.hospitalmedicine.org); it is $85 for SHM members and $125 for nonmembers.

SHM has also launched a BOOST data center and a BOOST community site. The data center enables sites to enter, track, and benchmark key outcomes, which can then be evaluated against comparison units at their own hospitals, BOOST averages, and subsets of hospitals with similar characteristics. The BOOST community site facilitates the sharing of ideas and documents between BOOST hospitals.

New funding approaches will help Project BOOST to continue to reach more hospitals. Since its inception, third parties have provided financial resources for the program.

Now, SHM is offering a tuition-based model, open to hospitals nationwide, which is set to begin this fall.

SHM is accepting applications at www.hospitalmedicine.org/boost. TH

Brendon Shank is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia.

Reference

Jencks SF, Williams MV, Coleman EA. Rehospitalizations among patients in the Medicare fee-for-service program. N Eng J Med. 2009:360:1418-1428.

“State of Hospital Medicine” Survey Coming in September

In September, hospitalists and hospital executives will be able to compare their practices to others across the country, thanks to a new report from SHM and the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA).

“This is the most comprehensive and largest survey of hospital medicine practices in the country,” says Leslie Flores, MHA, SHM’s senior advisor for practice management. “Our collaboration with MGMA allows us to expand the pool of people participating, and gives us even greater confidence in analysis and validity of the data.”

The new report will include compensation and productivity data for hospitalist practices, enabling HM group managers to better understand industry norms for practice sizes, turnover rates, and staffing models. It will provide national breakdowns for financial-support models of hospital medicine groups.

“This will give people a sense of the trends in the industry,” Flores says. “Not just how much they are getting paid, but how.”

The September report will serve as a supplement to MGMA’s comprehensive healthcare management survey report, which was published in June.

SHM members are eligible to receive a discount on the June report. To receive a discount code, e-mail survey@hospitalmedicine.org.—BS