Quality and Safety
The NQF Board of Directors has voted to stick to its decision to endorse a new all-cause hospital-wide readmissions measure developed by Yale University and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services -- a measure challenged by seven hospital systems.
The Supreme Court ruling -- finally -- has been handed down and the verdict is out: Chief Justice Roberts' hand pulled the ACA to shore. For the most part, industry insiders view the outcome as positive -- though many officials emphasize it's just the first step on a long road to reform.
It is the kind of grade that students are afraid to show their parents – the dreaded D-minus. Barely a notch above flunking, the grade is emblematic of poor performance.
When people are "moved into a medical environment from their home, it's very disorienting," says Joshua Jacobs, vice president of Windsor Healthcare, a Norwood, N.J.-based recovery, rehabilitation and nursing facility. "When they're taken out of their routine, it's very easy to lose focus."
In the past, surgery simulation was a crude approximation of what doctors really encounter – and they needed to be close to a teaching hospital to even try it. But surgery simulation is finally coming of age, thanks to breakthroughs in mobility, cloud-based software, and 3D imagery.
This past April, the federal government announced the names of 27 healthcare organizations nationwide that will be part of a brand new Medicare Shared Savings Program. If the doctors and other providers in one of the newly selected accountable care organizations (ACOs) are able to lower costs and improve care, they will reap financial rewards. Yet if you ask any of those involved, the money is not what excites them. It’s the opportunity to deliver better healthcare.
Catholic Health Initiatives is partnering with Orion Health to build an enterprise-wide HIE that will enable physicians and clinicians to access patient records across its 100 facilities in 19 states. Once connected, CHI plans to link to statewide HIEs in states where its 76 hospitals are located.
The Joint Commission has found that communication breakdown is the overwhelming root cause of sentinel events. Terry Edwards, CEO of PerfectServe, an intelligent clinical communications platform, is trying to do something about it.
3M Health Information Systems opened access Wednesday to its Healthcare Data Dictionary, under an agreement with the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs. 3M President Jon Lindekugel explains how this will enable semantic interoperability for the joint DoD/VA integrated electronic health record (iEHR), and discusses other innovations the project could lead to.
Allscripts had a great fall. CEO Glen Tullman says he and his team will put the EHR company together again -- better and stronger. He talks about what went wrong, the difficulties of integration, plans for recovery and Allscripts' future in the market.