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As policymakers and employers struggle with the rising costs of healthcare, there's a direct solution to cutting healthcare costs while not sacrificing quality of care says the Institute for Women's Policy Research: paid sick days.

Even with the major revisions to the final regulations for accountable care organizations (ACOs), uncertainty remains. The risks and technical challenges hospitals will face in transforming to the ACO model are daunting and require consideration.

Occupy Healthcare, an offshoot movement of Occupy Wall Street, is not covered as much as its parent, even though it is united in effort and, unlike the better known movement, has clear demands.

For the third straight month the number of Americans who continue to smoke topped 21 percent, despite the fact that access to life's basic necessities such as food, shelter, medicine and healthcare reached a four-year low, according to the October 2011 Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index (WBI).

If healthcare organizations are going to achieve reductions in medical errors, hospital-acquired infections and hospital readmissions, folks are going to have to work together and senior leadership at those organizations must engage patients and their families in the effort.

Aetna announced it will offer a value-based insurance plan that will eliminate or reduce member co-pays on common heart attack medications as a means to up patient medication compliance in order to keep high-risk patients healthier and out of the hospital.

It is commonly accepted that many poor veterans and their families find themselves on Medicaid, even though, in many cases, they would qualify for more generous benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are giving payers, providers and vendors a bit of a break. It has instituted a 90-day grace period for HIPAA 5010. January 1, 2012 is still the compliance date, but CMS said it will not "initiate enforcement action" on that compliance before March 31, 2012.

A collaborative effort among 53 Ohio hospitals resulted in a 48 percent reduction in central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) in intensive care units over a 22-month period, saving lives and $4.6 million in healthcare costs.