Accurately and consistently assessing patient acuity is important not only for workload balancing, but also for placing patients in the correct level of care. In many instances, low-acuity patients receive treatment in high-acuity hospitals, even though they would be better placed in another facility. Utilization review research has shown that many acute hospital bed days do not meet the criteria for an acute level of care, and a significant portion of medical emergency admissions remain in the hospital for non-acute care.

Oklahoma State University teamed up with Crucial Learning to address interpersonal communication among its medical students in three main categories: assumptions of incompetence, poor teamwork, and disrespect. The effort focused on the seven most crucial conversations in healthcare, with the goal of empowering staff to better communicate with each other.

Currently, many health plan members are not achieving their optimal health outcomes, and this can be manifested by missed preventive care opportunities, less activation in their care, or rating health plans poorly on quality measurement surveys. For health plans and their provider partners, now is the time to shift this dynamic by devoting greater resources toward improving health equity, in combination with other calls for change, including equity initiatives espoused by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and new accreditations offered by the NCQA.

Ask any healthcare executive to name the biggest issue that will demand their attention in 2022, and the response will be staffing shortages and their impact on patient safety. Those focused on improving care quality might consider how key trends will play out and the impact of current industry challenges on their healthcare ecosystem.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services defines a transition of care as the movement of a patient from one setting of care to another. Settings of care may include hospitals, ambulatory primary care practices, ambulatory specialty care practices, long-term care facilities, home health, and rehabilitation facilities. To improve these transitions, our health care system needs strong interdisciplinary care teams to collaborate and establish processes that improve transitions at each level of care within the health care continuum.