Quality and Safety
The New Jersey Hospital Association is expanding an innovative "gainsharing" pilot program designed to improve healthcare efficiency and reduce costs by promoting better coordination and collaboration among New Jersey hospitals and physicians.
In order to survive in the ever-changing healthcare marketplace while saddled with new healthcare reform mandates, hospitals around the country must optimize three fundamental components of care delivery: clinical/operational integration, financial integration, and shared infrastructure and governance.
These should be the best of times for the patient safety movement. After all, it was concerns over medical mistakes that launched the transformation of our delivery and payment models, from one focused on volume to one that rewards performance. Yet I’ve never been more worried about the safety movement than I am today.
Medicare patients can anticipate paying considerably less for their diabetes and other products starting in July when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services expands its competitive bidding for durable medical equipment (DME) and mail-order program but the DME industry continues to point out problems with the program.
A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows a significant decline in central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs), but Consumers Union says more needs to be done, since the report also suggests most hospitals have not made significant overall infection improvements in five years.
Electronic health records (EHRs) have to be usable and useful by physicians and integrate with hospitals' or practices' other systems to benefit providers or else the money spent on them is just wasted.
Communication and teamwork across healthcare systems appears to be a nearly universal challenge, according to a survey of nearly 9,800 primary care physicians representing 11 nations. The Commonwealth Fund released findings of the survey in November 2012, and expanded on several drill-down topics during a webinar presented on Feb. 5.
A bill introduced in the House this week by Reps. Allyson Schwartz (D-Penn.) and Joe Heck, MD, (R-Nev.) has once again raised hopes that the sustainable growth rate formula (SGR) payment model for Medicare can finally be repealed.
Keeping shelves stocked and enough supplies in their place is one of the most important aspects of managing any hospital department efficiently and safely. Monica Goetz, clinical nursing manager at Great Baltimore Medical Center, shares five key ways that electronic supply management can improve patient safety, create efficiencies and save money.
Hennepin County, Minnesota, is getting better outcomes with lower costs in a high-cost segment of its Medicaid population by being flexible and more targeted in meeting the needs of these patients learned an audience at the National Health Policy Conference Tuesday.