Submitted by Bill Howell MBA, RRT-NPS, Director Respiratory Care & Sleep Medicine, Riddle Hospital
Deployment of the new MLH COPD order set in Smart Chart began on Thursday, July 24. This evidenced-based order set is to be used for ALL patients with a suspected or confirmed diagnosis of COPD. .
Since COPD patients are treated by a variety of physicians, MLH’s new COPD order set is designed to standardize and provide best practice care. The aim is to increase efficiencies in order to decrease length of stay and to prevent 30-day readmissions. As you may already know, starting this October, Medicare will begin penalizing hospitals for 30-day COPD readmissions.
In addition to the standard orders provided on earlier versions, the new MLH COPD order set has increased choices directed at the “back end” of the patient’s admission. These include:
- Case management for Home O2
- Palliative Care consult
- RT consult for assessment and education
- Pulmonary Rehab assessment
- PT/OT consults
- PFT data to be placed on the chart
The order set is the culmination of the work of many pulmonary, internal medicine, and hospitalist physicians and various department leaders across the MLH system for the last year and a half.