Quality and Safety
A complex conditions project in Maine has found that behavioral health disorders have as much impact on medical costs as having three chronic medical conditions and that fragmentation of care leads to higher overall costs.
The results are in from the MGMA-ACMPE Medical Directorship and On-Call Compensation Survey: 2013 Report Based on 2012 Data.
An advanced stage cancer diagnosis used to be almost a death sentence, but that wouldn't have to be the case if we were wise in sustaining cancer research funding.
In "Perfecting Patient Journeys" ($70, Lean Enterprise Institute), authors Judy Worth, Tom Shuker, Beau Keyte, Karl Ohaus, Jim Luckman, David Verble, Kirk Paluska and Todd Nickel offer a how-to guide for using lean management to make progress toward improving service delivery and costs. Beau Keyte and Jim Luckman talked to Healthcare Finance News about the book.
A study by Kaiser Permanente of the medical records of 8,454 women, ages 55 years or older shows that nearly 30 percent of women failed to pick up their bisphosphonate prescriptions, a medication that is most commonly used to treat osteoporosis and similar bone diseases.
According to research done by the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and published in the May issue of Medical Care, magnet hospitals have both lower patient mortality rates and better patient outcomes, due in part to more investments in nursing at these organizations.
The Bipartisan Policy Center on Thursday released what it hopes will be "a viable political plan to reign in the spiraling costs" of healthcare while also improving quality.
University Hospitals, a healthcare system in northeast Ohio, has joined up with three smaller health systems in the state to create a new purchasing collaborative to save money on supplies and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of care delivery.
Health insurer Priority Health has announced it has contracted with Healthcare Blue Book to publish cost and quality information for more than 300 procedures by facility and physician for its insurance members in Michigan.
Hospitals make more of a profit when surgical patients develop complications finds a new study published Wednesday in JAMA.