Parkland Memorial Hospital is behind schedule on two critical government safety mandates—ensuring enough psychiatrists are on duty and developing ways to track the supervision of doctors-in-training. FULL STORY »
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Denver, announced its long-awaited first four primary research fund opportunities with a FULL STORY »
Hospice marketers are looking to exploit a provision in the healthcare law by persuading hospitals to send Medicare patients into end-of-life hospice care instead of readmitting them to the hospital. FULL STORY »
A task force advising the U.S. government on Monday recommended against routine use of the prostate-cancer screening test called PSA, or prostate specific antigen, for lack of a discernible health benefit. FULL STORY »
Among hospital intensive-care units with a daytime physician specially trained in critical care, adding a specialist to cover the night shift does not improve patients' survival, according to a new study. FULL STORY »
Fatigue among medical residents is "prevalent, pervasive and variable," and accounts for increased risk of medical error, according to a report in the American Medical Association's Archives of Surgery journal. FULL STORY »
Stretchers that can transport 500-pound patients. Wheelchairs designed for people who weigh 700 pounds. Toilets made to support half a ton. Hospitals and clinics are preparing for a future in which almost half of the population will be obese. FULL STORY »
A group of prominent addiction doctors has mounted a quiet legal campaign on behalf of Cameron Douglas, the troubled son of the actor Michael Douglas, in hopes of finding a sympathetic ear for their view that drug addiction is best handled with more treatment, not more prison time. FULL STORY »
By Maureen McKinney | May 19, 2012
| Print Magazine
On the morning of March 27, a group of 46 quality improvement professionals gathered in a brightly lit conference room on the ground floor of a large hotel near Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. FULL STORY »
In an exclusive interview, Carol Wagner, senior vice president for patient safety at the Washington State Hospital Association, talks with Modern Healthcare reporter Maureen McKinney. Wagner discusses her association's top priorities under the HEN program as well as goals under the Partnership for... FULL STORY »
According to a study presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago, primary-care doctors are about half as successful as cancer specialists in identifying the side effects that occur after cancer treatment. FULL STORY »
Medtronic said that the Justice Department and the United States attorney’s office in Massachusetts had closed their investigation related to the omission of safety issues of its orthopedic product Infuse and its off-label use. FULL STORY »
Driven in part by the Florida Board of Medicine, state medical boards' disciplinary actions against physicians increased 6.8% in 2011, according to the Federation of State Medical Boards Summary of 2011 Board Actions (PDF). FULL STORY »
Genetic testing does not drive increased use of health services, according to the results of a study published online by the journal Genetics in Medicine. FULL STORY »
In 1979, the average cost of gasoline was 86 cents per gallon; the federal funds rate was as high as 13.78%; and people associated an apple with a piece of fruit. FULL STORY »
Latinos earned 10% of the degrees and certificates awarded in 2009-10 for students enrolled in healthcare-related professions, according to a study. FULL STORY »
Texas' nearly 7,000 nurse practitioners and about 4,500 of their nursing colleagues with advanced training say the state needs to unshackle their talents by updating a 23-year-old law that imposes "unnecessary restrictions" on their treating of patients. FULL STORY »
The Missouri Hospital Association released a report in response to the Joplin, Mo., tornado and other events that highlights areas the states' hospitals could do better to be ready for a disaster. FULL STORY »
A shift last year by the federal government in how it pays for drugs to treat dialysis patients may have had an unintended and potentially dire consequence, according to new research. FULL STORY »
Dr. Mark Chassin, president of the Joint Commission, discusses the federal government's new patient safety initiative, the $1 billion Partnership for Patients program, and how that program dovetails with the work of his organization, the largest private-sector healthcare accreditation body. FULL STORY »
David Daniel, CEO of Lakeland (Fla.) Surgical & Diagnostic Center, won the second annual Healthcare Administrator Award from the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology. Lakeland Surgical reduced its infections to just two, even as its number of procedures grew by more... FULL STORY »
Jeffrey Rivest, president and CEO of the University of Maryland Medical Center, Baltimore, discusses how his hospital has made it onto the Leapfrog Group's top hospitals list in each of the five years that the group has ranked hospitals. The University of Maryland Medical Center and Virginia Mason... FULL STORY »
Gary Kaplan, chairman and CEO, Virginia Mason Health System, Seattle, discusses how his hospital has made it onto the Leapfrog Group's top hospitals list in each of the five years that the group has ranked hospitals. Virginia Mason Health System and the University of Maryland Medical Center,... FULL STORY »
Mortality, length of stay and patient safety. Those are among key clinical measures used in the annual 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks study conducted by Thomson Reuters to recognize high-performance hospitals. But that's only part of the picture. The study also includes financial markers... FULL STORY »
I'm responding to your article about the Health Affairs paper that said that one-third of all hospitalized patients at three tertiary hospitals suffered adverse events. FULL STORY »
The Joint Commission is on a confused track. Mark Chassin's study of his organization's quality process measures was interesting to those of us who find “process” measures typically indirect, microfocused and therefore misguided as an approach to improving quality. FULL STORY »
