Quality and Safety
According to Medicare's latest hospital readmissions data on its Hospital Compare website updated last week, very few hospitals are singled out as poor performers when it comes to readmissions, despite the fact that readmission rates haven't been improving nationwide.
Last week, the Joint Commission International (JCI) announced a new set of standards for international academic medical centers accredited by the JCI.
Medicaid agencies from seven states have signed on to an accountable care organization collaborative effort via the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) that will help states tailor ACOs based on the unique qualities of their health systems.
As new rules have been recently published regarding the requirements facing nonprofit hospitals due to the IRS Form 990, Schedule H, many hospitals may realize that they are not always taking the best approach to community benefit through presumptive charity and misclassifying a great number of charity-eligible patients.
Cleared by an eight to six vote, the Labor, Health and Human Services (LHHS) bill would effectively prohibit any federal funding of patient-centered outcomes research, which is conducted by AHRQ. Other provisions of the bill include withdrawing funding from the prevention fund incorporated in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Every second counts when you're working in a hospital operating room. Mark Antoszyk, head nurse anesthetist at Carolinas Medical Center NorthEast, was concerned that his hospital was wasting far too many of these seconds manually capturing charges for medication used.
Changing the method for how CMS adjusts payments to reflect regional variations in the cost of care as recommended by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) can help ensure payment accuracy, but would do little to tackle the broader issues of access to care and care quality.
On Monday, the eight recipients of the Emergency Nurses Association's (ENA) second annual Lantern Awards were announced.
More than 60 organizations have signed on with an American Medical Association (AMA) initiative aimed at helping physicians put payer-provided data reports to better use to enhance the quality of care, the AMA announced July 16.
The American Hospital Association's (AHA) Physician Leadership Forum released a new white paper recently that discusses and examines the core competencies that are necessary in order to deliver coordinated, team-based, value-driven care, as well as recommendations for how healthcare organizations can learn to develop these skills in the upcoming generation of new physicians.