Quality and Safety

In a novel initiative, Geisinger Health System is launching a refund program for patients not met with "kindness and compassion," President and CEO David T. Feinberg, MD, announced this week.

When errors happen in the hospital, questions arise: Who's responsible? If treatment makes things worse - meaning patients need more care - who pays?

Going forward, the exam every medical student and new physician must take to get a license will include questions about military medicine.

Truven said the winning hospitals spent $6,100 less on average per bypass surgery than hospitals that did not win recognition.

Because hospital-acquired infections are a common complication and extend inpatient stays, hospitals actually save money by building costly, single-patient rooms, according to a new study by Cornell University.

For the fourth consecutive year, physician-owned hospitals are among the top performers in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services value-based purchasing program, according to Physicians Hospitals of America.

The American Medical Association is adding 20 leading medical schools to the 11 already participating in its Accelerating Change in Medical Education Consortium, a group that hopes to "bridge the gaps that exist between how medical students are trained and how healthcare is delivered" in the 21st Century.

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute already has funded 468 studies, and last month opened the second phase of a program to create research networks covering specific diseases and involving millions of patients across the country.

Massive stores of data about what works for which patients are literally changing the way medicine is practiced.

Hospitals that are flunking out when it comes to patient safety really only have one choice, according to the Leapfrog Group: Get better.