Quality and Safety
A new accountable care health plan from Aetna offered in conjunction with Aurora Health Care will offer a price guarantee to employers, many of whom may see an average reduction of 10 percent based on their past claims expenses.
When it comes to patient experience, U.S. safety-net hospitals -- those serving a disproportionately larger number of low-income and Medicaid patients -- are getting poor performance reviews, which may indicate they will struggle under value-based purchasing models.
A new study sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund found that less than 3 percent of hospitals use all 10 recommended practices for reducing readmissions for patients admitted with heart failure or acute myocardial infarction (AMI).
During a White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) conversation on July 24, 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 including sustainability efforts and initiatives into their business models.
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.