What Have You Done For Me Lately?

A few years ago I got started down a path thanks to a library director friend in Oklahoma who asked me to teach a class specifically for hospital librarians.  While he worked in an academic medical library he noticed that hospital librarians in his area needed some help thinking of different ways to prove their value or justify their existence, especially in light of the Affordable Care Act (which was very new at the time and nobody knew what would happen…but they knew it would have a pretty big impact). In preparation for the class, I did a lot of research on the ACA.  I was and still am not an authority on the ACA but I did learn a lot about the changing landscape that hospitals would be (and now are) dealing with.  The biggest change was moving from a fee for service model to a value based model of providing healthcare services. (Gross over simplification of the ACA coming next….if you want more info click here for a very detailed LibGuide on it.) Traditionally hospitals were paid on how many procedures they did and billed.  If you had a heart attack were admitted, then released, and then readmitted a few days later…they were paid for the services they provided each time you were admitted.  The ACA now penalizes hospitals that have readmission rates for certain conditions, procedures, etc. In the heart attack example the hospital would still be paid for the services they provided BUT they would also incur a penalty if their readmission rate for heart...
Source: The Krafty Librarian - Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs