Quality and Safety
Gray market vendors are adding exorbitant price mark-ups to desperately needed drugs in the wake of record-high drug shortages in the United States, according to a Premier healthcare alliance analysis of unsolicited sales offers.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is seeking to offer clarity to manufacturers and reviewers of medical devices. The agency released proposed guidance on how benefit-risk determinations are made during premarket review and how researchers and manufacturers can design better quality clinical studies.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded $49 million in grants to improve the quality of healthcare and strengthen the public health infrastructure - double the spending for the same programs in 2010.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services should improve its process for physician quality reporting in order to make the reports more reliable, says Government Accountability Office.
Aetna and post-acute care provider Genesis HealthCare announced last week an incentive-based contract aimed at rewarding Genesis for creating a coordinated care approach that reduces hospital readmissions for Aetna members.
Partners Health Care (the dominant provider network in Greater Boston) and Neighborhood Health Plan (a local mostly-Medicaid HMO) just announced that the former intends to acquire the latter, and maintain it as a separate operating entity.
Touting it as the first of its kind ACO in Northern California, Anthem Blue Cross and the Individual Practice Association Medical Group of Santa Clara County (SCCIPA) have announced a contract to provide accountable care to tens of thousands of Anthem PPO members in the Silicon Valley.
Professionals at healthcare organizations across the country expect costs to rise with healthcare reform but those costs will be tempered by increased access to care and organizational efficiencies.
Patient satisfaction with hospital emergency departments is strongest in Miami, Hartford, Conn., and Indianapolis found healthcare consulting firm Press Ganey Associates in its annual ED patient satisfaction survey.
A Los Angeles-based IT entrepreneur wants to pare down the expensive EMR to its simplest charting functions, add a few solutions and offer it to non-profits looking to provide healthcare to disadvantaged populations around the world.