 |
There has been significant progress in getting health information technology systems to talk to one another, according to a new study on interoperability by HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. The study, “Hospital Electronic Health Information Exchange Grew Substantially in 2008-12,” was published in the August issue of the policy journal Health Affairs. The report was written by five ONC staffers, including the lead author, Michael Furukawa, director of the ONC's Office of Economic Analysis, Evaluate and Modeling, and contributor Dr. Farzad Mostashari, the ONC chief.
Read more »
Fledgling accountable care organizations have faced plenty of challenges. Now a group of economists and lawyers are calling for a close look at issues involving insurance, antitrust and other regulation to avoid “unintended consequences.” Health policy experts Gary Bacher, Michael Chernew, Daniel Kessler and Stephen Weiner write in the latest issue of the policy journal Health Affairs that ACOs could stifle competition among insurers and providers and potentially drive up prices.
Read more »
Joint replacement prices at the most costly California hospitals plunged by one-third after the state required its workers and retirees to pay out of pocket all costs above a “reference price” of $30,000 for orthopedic surgery, a new study said. The average cost of joint replacement among high-priced hospitals dropped to $28,465 after the California Public Employees' Retirement System made the change in 2011, wrote University of California researchers James Robinson and Timothy Brown in the journal Health Affairs. That's down from $43,308 the prior year.
Read more »
Before there can be patient-generated data, there have to be patients willing and able to provide it and tools to capture, communicate, receive and present it. That's where Dr. Susan Woods comes in. “My focus is really on the patient's and the caregiver's use of electronic tools and on making value for patients in using these tools,” said Woods, who is the director of patient experience for the Veterans Health Administration.
Read more »
Stark
The healthcare world is populated by scores of legal experts who strive to keep up with the sprawling compendium of statutes, regulations and legal advisories known collectively as the “Stark law.” But the law's father, Fortney “Pete” Stark, is not one of them. Stark, in fact, says he would favor repealing the law as it currently exists and getting back to the law's initial intent.
Read more »
Wachter
Dr. Robert Wachter, a pioneer in the field of hospitalist medicine, has been elected to board of directors of IPC the Hospitalist Co., a North Hollywood, Calif.-based hospital medicine and physician group practice company operating in 28 states. Wachter, a professor and associate chair at the University of California at San Francisco who just finished his term as chairman of the American Board of Internal Medicine, will chair the IPC board's quality committee.
Read more »
Greater proportions of not-for-profit and government hospitals than for-profit hospitals qualified for at least one category of Medicare payment adjustments last year, according to new findings from the Government Accountability Office. About 97% of government-owned hospitals and 90% of not-for-profit hospitals paid by the Medicare program received at least one form of increased payment to the standard inpatient prospective-payment system last year.
Read more »
Eight out of 10 eligible hospitals and 58% of eligible physicians and other medical professionals have received payments totaling $15.5 billion under the federal electronic health record incentive payment program, according to the latest CMS data. Through June, 4,024 hospitals have shared nearly $9.2 billion dollars to adopt, implement, upgrade and/or meaningfully use certified EHRs under the Medicaid and Medicare EHR incentive payment programs created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
Read more »
Highmark's turn to try to stanch losses at Pittsburgh's West Penn Allegheny Health System has begun. Roughly 260 workers at the health system were laid off today and another 200 vacant jobs were eliminated. The four-hospital system, the hub of Highmark's new eight-hospital Allegheny Health Network, has hemorrhaged cash and lost patients in recent years. Now the system must shrink accordingly, said Dan Laurent, an Allegheny Health Network spokesman.
Read more »
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the University of Pennsylvania bioethicist and oncologist who helped the White House draft the healthcare reform law, aims fire in today's Wall Street Journal at U.S. News & World Report's "Best Hospitals" rankings. Calling the methodology behind the rankings "flawed to the point of being useless," he blasts their overreliance on reputation and a failure to take into account quality criteria such as hospital-acquired infections and incidence of preventable falls and bed sores.
Read more »
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the University of Pennsylvania bioethicist and oncologist who helped the White House draft the healthcare reform law, aims fire in today's Wall Street Journal at U.S. News & World Report's "Best Hospitals" rankings. Calling the methodology behind the rankings "flawed to the point of being useless," he blasts their overreliance on reputation and a failure to take into account quality criteria such as hospital-acquired infections and incidence of preventable falls and bed sores.
Read more »
Older posts
|
|
|
 |
