Quality and Safety

Richard Antonelli, MD, a primary care pediatrician and medical director of integrated care at Boston Children's Hospital, has been thinking and working at making a difference in the field of care coordination for more than 20 years. Now, he's in the midst of a project that he's convinced will engage and empower patients and their families.

Intermountain Healthcare has joined with a group of IT companies including Intel and Dell to launch its new Healthcare Transformation Lab, which will work to bring envelope-pushing technologies to the bedside faster and more efficiently.

While the rapid spread of mobile apps and devices has led to innovations in providing targeted physical care, more and more technology is being put to work reaching out to patients struggling with mental illness.

Five hospitals across West Virginia have recently signed on with the state's health information network, bringing the total number of hospitals connected to nine.

The statistics are disturbing: between 10 percent and 15 percent of medical diagnoses are incorrect and those diagnostic errors have a high cost -- even death. To combat potential patient harm and reduce the costs from misdiagnosis, hospitals and medical practices are turning to clinical decision support tools.

All the pressure being exerted on the healthcare industry during this period of unprecedented change is giving strategists a lot to consider as the model of care evolves. One of the biggest challenges is how providers can offer a high level of personalized care in a cost-effective manner using the IT tools that are currently available.

The growth and maturity of clinical informatics over the past decade has been a prime catalyst in positioning the healthcare industry for the changes posed by reform measures. By understanding the process of analytics, healthcare providers have the insight necessary to make process adjustments in the future.

The Inova Translational Medicine Institute at Virginia's Inova Fairfax Hospital and Cambridge, Mass.-based analytics firm GNS Healthcare are partnering to develop and commercialize computer models to predict the risk of preterm live birth.

Medicare will levy $227 million in fines against hospitals in every state but one for the second round of the government's campaign to reduce the number of patients readmitted within a month, according to federal records released Friday.

Employing a strategy that uses electronic medical records to direct care transition resources to the high-risk heart failure patients who need them most can reduce hospital readmissions, according to a new study by University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the Mayo Clinic.