Kaiser Health News
Over the past few decades the physical diagnosis skills that were once the cornerstone of doctoring have withered, supplanted by a dizzying array of sophisticated, expensive tests, according to medical educators.
One of the biggest challenges American hospitals face right now is adopting electronic medical records systems. It's costing tens of billions of dollars, eating up tons of staff time and it's especially tough for the country's 2,000 rural and small town hospitals.
The panel hasn't had a meeting and no one's even been nominated for it yet, but the Obama administration's fiscal 2015 budget request says the health law's Independent Payment Advisory Board, also known as IPAB, could save the government triple what officials estimated last year.
Telemedicine, the exchange of medical information between sites via electronic communications, is being used not only by ICUs but also by other hospital departments, home health agencies and private doctors' offices. But skeptics suggest that small ICUs might be able to improve care with less expensive measures.
Last month, the Identity Theft Resource Center produced a survey showing that medical-related identity theft accounted for 43 percent of all identity thefts reported in the United States in 2013. According to HHS, the theft of a computer or other electronic device is involved in more than half of medical-related security breaches.
Kurt DelBene, longtime Microsoft executive, now the successor to Jeff Zients, the tech-surge czar at the Department of Health and Human Services gives his first detailed interview on what it's going to take to shore Healthcare.gov.
Connecticut, like most states with their own Obamacare enrollment site, is faring well. Now Connecticut's governor is wondering why the feds couldn't do the same.
Judge not, that ye be not judged. Irked by the growing number of report cards assessing the quality of hospitals, a New York state hospital association has taken this biblical admonition to heart by putting out a report card grading the quality of hospital graders. Five of the 10 report cards that were evaluated were given low marks.
Some states like Washington have enrolled 48,995 in health insurance programs through its new health exchange site, yet those states that have relied on the federal government's site have faltered. CIOs explain why.
When President Obama addressed massive problems with the federal health-insurance exchange website last week, he couldn't cite any actual enrollments in health plans offered through the site. At the same time, several states running their own exchanges have exceeded federal-enrollment targets. Why?