Clinical

Each year, medical errors kill 400,000 Americans, more people than any other illness aside from cancer and heart disease. In an effort to recognize hospitals that have successfully worked to reduce these deadly medical errors, patient safety organization The Leapfrog Group has released its list of the 2014 top hospitals in the U.S.

New findings published Dec. 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine affirms a practice for stroke response that has been employed by Donald Frei, MD, and the stroke team at Swedish Medical Center's Radiology Imaging Associates.

Montefiore Medical Center delivers care to some 2 million people in the Bronx and beyond, and has been a longtime leader in population health initiatives. But one of the "basic challenges that we face," says Jack Wolf, Montefiore's chief information officer, "is the lack of a unique patient identifier."

A population healthcare model in Mississippi that leverages telehealth technology to help curb diabetes has achieved early success and caught the attention of state officials who are part of the public-private partnership.

With all the talk about patient engagement as a component of both meaningful use and of healthcare quality improvement, it seems to be lacking in one of the most obvious places of all: the hospital room.

A new survey from the American Health Information Management Association finds that 95 percent of the more than a thousand healthcare industry professionals queried believe that "high-value information" is essential for improving patient safety and care quality.

It's a chilling reality -- one often overlooked in annual mortality statistics: Preventable medical errors persist as the No. 3 killer in the U.S. -- third only to heart disease and cancer -- claiming the lives of some 400,000 people each year. At a Congressional hearing July 17, patient safety officials put their best ideas forward on how to solve the crisis, with IT often at the center of discussions.

The Certification Commission has selected two new, all-volunteer panels to develop criteria for electronic health records in women's health and in oncology, the latest domains to be added to CCHIT's certification programs.