Quality and Safety
With hospitals nationwide feeling the burden of Medicare penalties for avoidable 30-day readmissions, C-suite managers have been frantically searching for ways to pinpoint these high-risk patients early on. A recent analysis suggests a low-cost and simple scorecard that detects one out of four of these patients.
Dr. Thomas Bellavia transformed his traditional medical practice in Hasbrouck Heights, N.J., into a so-called medical home where patients are seen by teams of doctors and nurses. He says it has paid off in better, more coordinated care for his patients and healthier income for the nurse practitioners and physicians in his group.
When President Barack Obama released his fiscal year 2014 budget proposal in April, John Lozier, executive director of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council (NHCHC), became immediately concerned that not enough is being done at the federal level to resolve the on-going homelessness epidemic.
A new analysis of more than 3 million claims for Medicare patients found that patients enrolled in a managed Medicare Advantage plan had better health outcomes than those senior enrolled in the traditional fee-for-service Medicare model.
With recognition that "the path through accountable care is unknown," IDC Health Insights has launched a new Accountable Care Maturity Model, designed to help healthcare organizations gauge their own status and make strategic decisions for funding business and IT initiatives.
A recent study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative (INQRI) suggests that rural hospitals may be able to ensure more high-quality care to their patients if they are able to maintain a lower nurse turnover rate and better practice environments.
HIMSS Media launched a global online community this week dedicated to chronicling new and innovative models of healthcare that improve individual and community well-being, while also promising cost reduction.
Generic drugs have been an effective cost containment solution for traditional, small molecule pharmaceuticals. As large molecule biologics proliferate and take up a growing share of medical spending, we also increasingly need cost containment.
A new report examining the state of the skilled nursing industry finds that there have been steady quality improvements since 2003 but more can be done.
A recent survey updating the Hospital Safety Score conducted by Leapfrog Group which assigns A through F letter grades for how well hospitals are addressing errors, accidents and infections that kill or hurt patients, shows only incremental progress over past reports.