Western Pennsylvania Healthcare News

Covering healthcare news in the Pittsburgh region and beyond.

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Learn How Shaeffer Consulting Group Drastically Improved PRMC’s In-Hospital Pharmacy

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The Shaeffer Consulting Group guides its clients to make strategic, intelligent decisions that will ultimately result in safe, clinically sound, and cost-effective solutions that are beneficial for their patients and organization.

In 2016, PRMC Home Scripts approached The Shaeffer Consulting Group about improving their ambulatory pharmacy operations. PRMC Home Scripts, part of the Peninsula Regional Medical Center (PRMC) in Salisbury, Maryland, is a first-fill pharmacy with two locations—onsite at the hospital and a retail location in Ocean Pines, a senior living facility. 

While the hospital-based PRMC Home Scripts pharmacy is designed for first fills only, PRMC Home Scripts Ocean Pines is a full-service community pharmacy. Patients who choose to stay with PRMC Home Scripts in the Ocean Pines, Berlin, Bishopville and lower Sussex County Delaware communities can continue to have their prescriptions filled there.

PRMC has 289 hospital beds and has been serving the healthcare needs of nearly 500,000 patients since 1897. It currently has about 3,300 physicians, staff and volunteers who provide safe, compassionate and affordable care.

PRMC Home Scripts has worked with Shaeffer Consulting previously on other projects and knew the results they could expect by working with them again. [Read more…]

Cancer Care’s Next Chapter Could Depend on RNA Interference

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By Geert Cauwenbergh, Dr.Med.Sc.

It’s no mystery why oncologists are eager for an improved array of therapeutic options. Certain important targets that are considered crucial to advance the state of care, such as RAS family members and various transcription factors, are considered so far “undruggable” using small molecules. At the same time, there is a growing recognition that in the era of personalized medicine, more flexible strategies are required to address the specific needs of individual cancer patients. As it turns out, one exciting area that could have the power and flexibility to address these challenges is immuno-oncology. RNA interference can be used to further improve immuno-oncology and expand approaches as well as to develop therapeutics for “undruggable” targets.   

One of the key benefits of immuno-oncology is the ability to modify a patient’s immune cells in ways that can make those cells more capable of fighting and killing cancer cells. In the laboratory, specific checkpoints on the surfaces of immune cells removed from the body can be modified, traditionally using antibodies, to sharpen their attack before being reinfused into the patient. But there’s a hitch: there are separate classes of checkpoints on cell surfaces, each of which can require modification. Multiple antibodies can be used simultaneously to modify these various checkpoint types, but this approach is not only costly and technically challenging but also harbors potentially harmful side effects. The ability to address different classes of checkpoints without putting the patients in harm’s way is one of the goals of oncology research today. [Read more…]

Let’s Be Real: How Much Does Cranberry Juice Really Help UTIs?

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One of the most common home remedies for a urinary tract infection is cranberry juice. Cranberries are filled with antioxidants and vitamins. Cranberry juice can be quite good for your health, in small doses, but it does have high amounts of sugar and is very acidic. It can bother your stomach. But can it prevent or cure a UTI?

Do Cranberries Prevent UTIs?

Cranberries are thought to prevent infections from forming because of an active ingredient A-type proanthocyanidins (PACs). Cranberry juice contains antioxidants that stop bacteria from sticking to your urinary tract wall. Although some women swear by cranberry juice, controlled research does not support the theories. It’s really unclear whether cranberry juice will prevent a UTI. [Read more…]

4 Ways EMS Billing Software Makes Ambulance Claims Processing More Efficient

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Inevitably, senior ambulance billers will (and should) influence EMS billing software decisions. EMS billers are constantly under fire when it comes to compliance, rejection/denial rates, and efficiency.

It’s not easy for EMS billers to manage all the demands of ambulance billing while still maintaining quality. In order to meet the high demands of ambulance billing, EMS billers need a software that works for them and not against them.

This post addresses what EMS billers need in an EMS billing software in order to make ambulance claims processing as efficient as possible.

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Filed Under: EMS

4 Effective Ways To Boost Your Confidence

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In everyday life, there are constant pressures and stresses that everyone goes through, and these can affect both your work and your life in general. It’s not just worrying about looking a certain way; it could relate to how you compare yourself to others in terms of success, financial stability, and relationships. It can be easy to let these feelings overcome you, but looking at ways to reduce negative thoughts and become a more positive person can help you reap the rewards of a happier and healthier lifestyle. There are several ways how you can gain a boost in confidence, so take a look at these four tips to help you each day.

Change your diet

The fuel you are putting into your body directly affects how you feel on the outside. Food often presents a comfort blanket for negative feelings, but this, in turn, piles on the pounds, and it can also cause significant health issues in the long-term. Diet and weight are two things that can be changed to help boost your self-esteem, and looking at ways to modify your lifestyle can be the catalyst for positive change. If you need a helping hand, there is a range of ways to get back on the right track; click here to find out how you could lose weight safely and effectively with a specialized program. [Read more…]

How To Secure An Impressive Promotion

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In order to fulfill your full potential, you should constantly be searching for exciting, challenging, and rewarding opportunities. Rather than sitting back and waiting for a promotion to fall into your lap, you need to take matters into your own hands. Nothing worth having comes easy, so you have no choice but to try your best. If you are ready and willing to do this, you will need to work your way through the following six steps. They will help you to move forward in your career path and to achieve your ambitious goals at an impressive rate. Whatever you do, don’t hold back! This is your chance to secure a bright and brilliant future.

Invest in your training and your career advancement

If you are going to secure an impressive promotion, it is essential that you appear serious about your career. How can you expect other people to have faith in you if you don’t have faith in yourself? Now is the perfect time to invest in your training. There is no better way for you to demonstrate the interest you have in your advancement. Even if you are working on a tight budget, it is still possible for you to access the necessary funds. Simply go online to take out a loan today. Whether you have a bad credit score or a prepaid debit card, you will qualify all the same. Then, you will have enough money to pay for your training and to improve your chances of progression. [Read more…]

Is Your EMS Accounts Receivable (A/R) Management Costing You?

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Anyone who knows anything about EMS billing knows billers have enough on their plate.

EMS billers work hard daily to prepare claims, ensure compliance, address denials, and much more. They do a great job, but often focus so much on taming that mountain of day-to-day tasks that they inadvertently neglect EMS accounts receivable management.

EMS accounts receivable management attempts to resolve debtor balances, but also tracks how much revenue comes in and how long it takes to receive it. When EMS billers don’t consistently perform these tasks, the entire agency suffers the consequences.

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Filed Under: EMS

It’s the Lean In Era, Yet Business and Tech Still Fail to Hire and Promote Women

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4 Ways to Fix the Problem Now

By Douglas M. Branson

Information technology (tech) is at the epicenter of the world’s economy. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are the foremost companies in the world. But women in tech, as in other industries, face obstacles from entry-level positions to the C-suite.

If industry truly wishes to fix this, it must stop retreating into seemingly noble expressions of sentiment, and instead evaluate and adopt specific procedures and programs. That is particularly true of tech, exhibit “A” in the corporate failure to hire and promote women. Re-allocating burdens, from women who aspire to the companies and industries that would employ them, and adoption by those companies of specific programs, is what my book is all about.

Women can lean in, education can push STEM, states may enact wage gap and family leave legislation. But those developments mask the more fundamental issue. From startups to the largest firms, firms themselves actually hire and promote females. In contrast, many of these companies have gender aversion baked into their DNA. Tech, for example, has been unable to support women at any level. A mere 5 percent of Tech’s senior executives are women. Branches of the industry, such as video gaming, are overtly misogynist in governance, in culture, and in product content. [Read more…]

Making the Argument for Electronic Patient Care Records

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Sometimes, EMS billing staff ask field providers to help find a copy of a patient care record. This might work out alright… until the field providers get busy with other things. Sure, the PCR ends up where it needs to be, but all the lost time adds up-and it’s expensive.

If you want to bypass the delay, ePCR is your answer. Electronic patient care records combine with today’s advancements in data security to give the EMS billing department, the ambulance managers, and all of those involved in the QA/QI process access to patient care records at any time, on almost any type of electronic device.

Read more.

 

Filed Under: EMS

Cal U Offers Convenient, Online Coursework for Nursing Students at Ohio Valley Hospital

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By Christine Kindl

Kennedy Township nursing school is the latest to partner with California University of Pennsylvania

Cal U has formed an educational alliance with the Ohio Valley Hospital School of Nursing (OVHSON) in Kennedy Township, Pa.

Under the new agreement, Cal U will provide top quality online coursework for nursing students who represent the future of healthcare in the region.

Cal U will offer students in the OVHSON nursing diploma program as many as 30 credits of non-degree coursework, entirely online. Nursing students will complete their science and general education requirements through Cal U’s online learning management system, while continuing their hands-on training in practical nursing skills at Ohio Valley Hospital.

“California University has coordinated the presentation of content in their courses to align with our nursing content, they have scheduled courses to coincide with our semesters as we needed, and they have opened their library resources — both brick-and-mortar and online — to all the Ohio Valley Hospital School of Nursing students,” says Valerie Gaydosh, OVHSON director.  [Read more…]