Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1372822
86 CMO / CARE DELIVERY States ranked by ER visit rate By Mackenzie Bean L ouisiana has the highest rate of emer- gency room visits in the U.S., according to a Kaiser Family Foundation ranking published in April. Kaiser Family Foundation analyzed data from the 1999-2019 American Hospital As- sociation Annual Survey. e data include ER visits from community hospitals, which rep- resent 85 percent of all hospitals in the U.S. In 2019, the national ER visit rate was 437 per 1,000 population. Here's how each state and the District of Columbia stack up. Note: e list includes ties, which results in a numerical listing of 44. 1. Louisiana — 604 2. Kentucky — 603 3. District of Columbia — 593 4. Ohio — 589 5. West Virginia — 582 6. Mississippi — 574 7. Maine — 537 8. New Hampshire — 524 9. Arkansas — 516 10. Vermont — 509 11. Alabama — 508 12. Indiana — 502 13. Michigan — 500 14. Rhode Island — 499 15. Tennessee — 497 16. Oklahoma — 492 17. Delaware — 491 Massachusetts — 491 18. Pennsylvania — 483 19. Connecticut — 477 Missouri — 477 Nebraska — 477 20. Florida — 474 21. South Carolina — 468 22. Alaska — 451 New York — 451 23. Illinois — 444 24. Georgia — 436 25. Virginia — 425 26. Montana — 424 North Carolina — 424 27. Texas — 422 28. New Mexico — 418 North Dakota — 418 29. Iowa — 417 30. Kansas — 411 31. New Jersey — 409 32. South Dakota — 407 33. Wisconsin — 391 34. Idaho — 386 Wyoming — 386 35. Washington — 384 36. Oregon — 373 37. Colorado — 366 38. Maryland — 365 39. Minnesota — 360 40. Hawaii — 351 41. California — 331 42. Arizona — 330 43. Nevada — 310 44. Utah — 269 n Hand-washing spiked during pandemic, Chicago hospital finds By Mackenzie Bean H and hygiene compliance among healthcare work- ers at the University of Chicago Medical Center soared early in the pandemic, but fell back to pre-pandemic levels after just four months, according to a study published April 26 in JAMA Internal Medicine. The medical center uses an automated hand hygiene monitoring system that tracks how often staff wash their hands or use sanitizer when entering and exiting a pa- tient's room. Researchers analyzed compliance trends at the hospital from September 2019 to August 2020. In September 2019, baseline monthly compliance was 54.5 percent across all units, a standard figure for the hospital. During the pandemic, monthly compliance peaked at 75.5 percent across all units and 84.4 per- cent for all units that were temporarily converted into COVID-19 units. Hand hygiene compliance hit a daily peak of 92.8 percent across all hospital units on March 29, 2020, and hit 100 percent across all COVID-19 units March 28, 2020. How- ever, by August 2020, monthly compliance had dropped back to 56 percent, researchers found. Various factors may have contributed to the jump in com- pliance, including staff members' increased awareness of the importance of hand-washing during the pandemic and more remote rounding by clinicians. "As hospitals set hand hygiene goals, this study suggests high compliance is possible, even with automated mon- itoring, yet difficult to sustain," researchers said. "The re- cent decline in compliance should be a clarion call to hos- pitals currently experiencing COVID-19 surges."n