This poster was developed to concisely demonstrate the clinical guideline focus for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services national inpatient priority topics. As documentation is often the issue in performance deficiencies, this tool was designed to be a reminder to those individuals who are documenting the care for patients in these areas of clinical focus. The poster provides clinical guideline reminders for surgical infection prevention, acute myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, and community-acquired pneumonia.

During an inpatient multi-topic collaborative meeting in Arkansas, the original example of this tool was shared by a hospital in Ft. Smith, Arkansas, that found the poster was helpful to adhere to clinical guidelines and to improve performance rates for using prophylactic antibiotics appropriately. The tool was then adapted for statewide distribution.

Print this tool and display it in areas where staff document the care provided, such as in nurses' stations, doctors' dictation areas, medical records, etc.  The poster can be laminated to make it more durable.