Quality and Safety
As part of the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General's current focus on nursing facilities, the OIG recently released a report entitled: Skilled Nursing Facilities Often Fail To Meet Care Planning and Discharge Planning Requirements.
David P. Blom is one of thousands of hospital executives across the country who are bracing for a reduction in Medicare payments as part of a series of federal spending cuts that began March 1. He talked with Kaiser Health News' Mary Agnes Carey about how his company is preparing to deal with sequestration.
During a session on how health reform is reverberating at the state level during the National Health Policy Conference held earlier this month, attendees learned how one health system in Ohio is using the accountable care organization model to improve care and costs and expand its horizons.
A new study purports to demonstrate that primary care physician offices in Ontario discriminate against the poor by being less likely to offer them appointments.
When it comes to healthcare analytics, hospitals and health systems can benefit most from the information if they move towards understanding the analytic discoveries, rather than just focusing on the straight facts.
An accountable care initiative comprising insurer Independence Blue Cross, local provider group Abington Health and St. Louis-based tech firm Lumeris, will be among the first of its kind in greater Philadelphia, with doctors having a 360-degree view of a patient's care across specialists and physicians, hospitals and clinics from all networks.
With the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) expansion of insurance coverage expected to increase the need for primary care services -- requiring an estimated additional 7,200 primary care providers -- 7 million Americans could likely face a primary care physician shortage after 2014.
The medical specialty societies participating in ABIM Foundation's Choosing Wisely have grown in number and have identified 90 more commonly-used tests and treatments that are not always necessary and may even cause harm, the foundation announced today.
For the last 10 years, the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers (CCHP), in Camden, N.J., has worked with local healthcare providers, hospitals and physician practices to improve quality, care coordination and costs by focusing on what the organization calls "superusers" and the high-cost "hot spots" in the city.
A new report released Feb. 19 recognizes the nation's top hospitals and cities for hospital care based on in-hospital mortality rates.