Quality and Safety
An Office of Management and Budget (OMB) report released last week that showed sequestration would cause an $11 billion cut to Medicare and looming cuts to physician reimbursements under the sustainable growth rate formula (SGR) has physicians groups saying the cuts would eviscerate their ability to provide quality care.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), a global investments firm, and the American Heart Association (AHA) have recently teamed up to launch a new research collaboration to study how effective workplace wellness initiatives have been at KKR and four of its portfolio companies.
Accountable care organizations (ACOs) have shown considerable promise, demonstrating savings and reduced readmission rates, said a recent Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice study.
In 2009, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBS) launched the Alternative Quality Contract (AQC), a global payment reimbursement pilot program that rewards participating physician groups for controlling spending and improving quality of care. A Commonwealth Fund-sponsored analysis of the first two years of the five-year pilot has found that such programs may be effective at controlling healthcare spending and improving quality.
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Rick Langfelder at Lutheran Medical Center, a 462-bed hospital located in Brooklyn, N.Y., spoke recently with Healthcare Finance News Associate Editor Kelsey Brimmer regarding the most pressing financial issues that many hospitals located in urban areas of the U.S. have been facing over the last few years and what is to come for them.
During a White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) conversation in July, leaders in healthcare and policy discussed the Healthier Hospitals Initiative (HHI) to reduce the environmental footprint of hospitals, lower costs and improve overall patient health by way of including sustainability efforts and initiatives into their business models.
As a full-time consumer and part-time conspiracy theorist, I’ve often wondered how meaningful an FDA approval really is. How much trust can I place in their endorsement of the products I buy and the foods I eat?
The use of generic prescription drugs has risen to a current rate of $1 billion every other day, saving the U.S. healthcare system more than $1 trillion over the last 10 years (2002-2011), according to a report released Aug. 2 by the Generic Pharmaceutical Association (GPhA).
In late July the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced an unprecedented partnership between the federal government, state officials, private health insurer organizations and a number of other anti-fraud groups focused on preventing healthcare fraud.
According to a new study published in the journal Critical Care Medicine, in the hours leading up to a serious complication, physicians and nurses may overestimate the quality of care given to their hospital patients.