Quality and Safety
Accountable Care Organizations may not ultimately keep that name, but experts say the concept of organizing providers and payers into a network striving for higher quality and more efficient care is destined to become a reality fairly soon.
The University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore and Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle have been named "Top Hospitals of the Decade" by The Leapfrog Group.
The conflict of interest that occurs when physicians accept gifts and payments from drug and medical device companies has been a concern for decades. While more transparency is needed in this area, a recent survey in the Archives of Internal Medicine indicates the relationship may be changing in a way that could help alleviate these conflicts of interest.
Members of the Service Employees International Union's United Healthcare Workers-West (SEIU-UHW) will go on strike Friday at five Hospital Corporation of America hospitals in California in an effort to target what they call unfair labor practices by the national company.
Two Kentucky-based companies, Humana and Norton Healthcare, are launching the region's first commercial Accountable Care Organization.
Three top New York hospitals are seeking advice from aviation safety experts in an effort to reduce medical errors.
Pittsburgh-based Highmark will offer a childhood obesity prevention benefit to its members starting in 2011 in collaboration with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a program that is expected to help about half a million children.
The Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System will receive more than $1 million in dividends from its medical liability insurance provider for improving patient safety.
The majority of emergency department directors in a recent survey report inadequate on-call trauma coverage, and nearly one-quarter report a loss or downgrade of their hospitals' trauma center designations.
Diabetes care for Native Americans is significantly underfunded, although that population has the highest per capita incidence of diabetes in the United States.