Operations

The state of Maryland is proposing significant changes to how its Medicaid system doles out cash to methadone treatment clinics. And some operators of such facilities aren't happy about it.

Hospitals in Pennsylvania have saved close to $700 million in last few years by cutting down on readmission rates and preventing unnecessary hospitalizations, according to the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council.

UnitedHealth Group subsidiary Optum will buy the administrative support services for ProHealth Physicians, one of Connecticut's largest independent physician groups.

Two professional organizations representing emergency doctors warn that a new federal rule could lead to higher out-of-pocket costs for consumers when they need emergency care outside their health plan's network of providers. But consumer advocates and health policy experts say the groups' proposed solution doesn't adequately protect consumers.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center, one of the pioneers in building its own software systems, announced it would switch to an Epic electronic health record in November 2017, having weighed the merits of both Epic and Cerner, the hospital announced on Friday.

Thursday's announcement by Kaiser Permanente that it plans to open its own medical school in Southern California has attracted a lot of attention in the healthcare community.

Healthcare organizations are bulking up their privacy protections with firewalls, encryption, data loss prevention software and more, but the much lower-tech visual hacking threat is still a concern, according to a new 3M educational campaign.

Perched on an exam table at the doctor's office watching the clinician type details about their medical problems into their file, what patient hasn't wondered exactly what the doctor is writing? As many as 50 million patients may have a chance to find out in the next few years, following the announcement this week of $10 million in new grants to expand the OpenNotes project, which works with medical providers to expand patient access to clinician notes.

Don Goldmann, chief medical and scientific officer for Institute of Healthcare Improvement, thinks the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services needs to change its methodology for ranking providers by their number of hospital-acquired infections as many respected hospitals are seeing payment reductions in the program.

Christine K. Cassel, MD, president and CEO of National Quality Forum, will resign March 1, 2016, in order to take a leadership role in designing the new Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine.