Quality and Safety
Sixty-five hospitals have earned the Leapfrog Group's annual "Top Hospital" designation, equaling 2010's record-setting total. The designation, which Leapfrog bills as the most competitive national hospital quality award in the country, recognizes quality of care.
Donald Berwick, MD, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services steps down Dec. 2 after 15 months on the job. He is known as a champion of healthcare information technology and patient-centered care.
The Department of Veterans Affairs says it has signed up 30,776 veterans so far to participate in pilots around the country for the virtual lifetime electronic record (VLER) program. VA CIO Roger Baker discusses VLER and the other initiatives that make it tick.
After a political impasse, in which Republicans effectively blocked his Senate confirmation, Donald Berwick, MD, will step down next week as administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. President Obama has nominated CMS principal deputy Marilynn Tavenner as Berwick's replacement.
It's little wonder that at least one subscriber of Wolters Kluwer Health's UpToDate has described it as "the best medical tool ever." The system has helped hospitals save approximately 11,500 lives and 372,500 hospital days over a three-year period, according to new research from Harvard.
RSNA Image Share will provide demonstrations on how best to share medical images all week during exhibit hours at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, Nov. 22-Dec. 2 at McCormick Place in Chicago, where commercial vendors and research organizations will use IHE profiles for image exchange.
Oncology presentations and exhibits are always a major focus of the RSNA annual meeting. This year is no exception. Count on GE Healthcare to devote a piece of its city-block-sized booth to its new $1 billion Healthymagination initiative to the fight against breast cancer.
The federal advisory Health IT Standards Committee is asking for feedback from individuals and organizations experienced in deploying specifications developed for the nationwide health information network (NwHIN) Exchange.
The government will award up to $1 billion to fund innovative projects across the country that test creative ways to deliver high quality medical care and save money.
Recently, Healthcare IT News put a poll to our readers, asking whether they're likely to "consult medical device ratings sites in making purchasing decisions." More than two thirds (68 percent) of respondents said yes.