Quality and Safety

With programs like "Pay-for-Performance," which enables insurance companies to reward physicians based on the quality of care they provide, healthcare providers aim to increase quality and safety for patients during appointments or hospital visits. By putting a heavy emphasis on decreasing readmissions, hospital-acquired infections and other patient dangers, healthcare providers expect to lower the overall cost of care.

RELATED STORIES:
Texas hospital saves $2.8 million with quality improvement program
Large multi-specialty medical groups offer higher quality, lower cost care
Leapfrog hospital survey: Quality still down, waste up

 
More Medicaid did not improve outcomes
Medicaid coverage alone is no guarantee of improved health outcomes, but researchers found that expanding Medicaid in Oregon reduced depression and eliminated out-of-pocket costs for its low-income enrollees.
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Post date: May 21, 2013
Mary Mosquera
News
Emergency departments now account for half of all hospital inpatient admissions
Emergency departments are now responsible for half of all inpatient admissions and accounted for nearly all the increases in admissions between 2003 and 2009, according to a new report from Rand Corporation.
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Post date: May 21, 2013
Chris Anderson
News
Spotting preventable readmissions
With hospitals nationwide feeling the burden of Medicare penalties for avoidable 30-day readmissions, C-suite managers have been frantically searching for ways to pinpoint these high-risk patients early on. A recent analysis suggests a low-cost and simple scorecard that detects one out of four of these patients.
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Post date: May 20, 2013
Paul Cerrato
News
Doctors transform medical practices
Dr. Thomas Bellavia transformed his traditional medical practice in Hasbrouck Heights, N.J., into a so-called medical home where patients are seen by teams of doctors and nurses. He says it has paid off in better, more coordinated care for his patients and healthier income for the nurse practitioners and physicians in his group.
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Post date: May 20, 2013
Ankita Rao
News
Experts express concern over president's budget, funding for homeless
When President Barack Obama released his fiscal year 2014 budget proposal in April, John Lozier, executive director of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council (NHCHC), became immediately concerned that not enough is being done at the federal level to resolve the on-going homelessness epidemic.
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Post date: May 20, 2013
Kelsey Brimmer
News
Medicare Advantage managed care plans surpass outcomes of regular Medicare
A new analysis of more than 3 million claims for Medicare patients found that patients enrolled in a managed Medicare Advantage plan had better health outcomes than those senior enrolled in the traditional fee-for-service Medicare model.
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Post date: May 17, 2013
Chris Anderson
News
IDC roadmap looks to provide a roadmap for the continued development of ACOs
With recognition that "the path through accountable care is unknown," IDC Health Insights has launched a new Accountable Care Maturity Model, designed to help healthcare organizations gauge their own status and make strategic decisions for funding business and IT initiatives.
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Post date: May 17, 2013
Mike Miliard
News
Stable nurse staffing improves quality
A recent study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative (INQRI) suggests that rural hospitals may be able to ensure more high-quality care to their patients if they are able to maintain a lower nurse turnover rate and better practice environments.
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Post date: May 16, 2013
Kelsey Brimmer
News
New website spotlights data, care models
HIMSS Media launched a global online community this week dedicated to chronicling new and innovative models of healthcare that improve individual and community well-being, while also promising cost reduction.
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Post date: May 15, 2013
Benjamin Harris
News
Quality improvements seen for SNFs
A new report examining the state of the skilled nursing industry finds that there have been steady quality improvements since 2003 but more can be done.
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Post date: May 14, 2013
Stephanie Bouchard
News
Hospital safety shows little progress
A recent survey updating the Hospital Safety Score conducted by Leapfrog Group which assigns A through F letter grades for how well hospitals are addressing errors, accidents and infections that kill or hurt patients, shows only incremental progress over past reports.
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Post date: May 10, 2013
Bernie Monegain
News
Analysis examines quality measures
A recent policy analysis from the National Institute for Health Care Reform (NIHCR), written by Carrier and other researchers from the center, reviews the various types of quality measurements and discusses ways in which payers can help make quality information more available, reliable and usable.
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Post date: May 10, 2013
Kelsey Brimmer
News
Are biosimilars ethical?
Generic drugs have been an effective cost containment solution for traditional, small molecule pharmaceuticals. As large molecule biologics proliferate and take up a growing share of medical spending, we also increasingly need cost containment.
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Post date: May 15, 2013
David Williams
Blog
CMS and OIG Proposed Rules on EHR Software Exception and Safe Harbor Promote Interoperability
On April 10, 2013, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) published parallel proposed rules revising, respectively, the Stark exception and Anti-Kickback safe harbor concerning electronic health record (EHR) items and services.
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Post date: May 7, 2013
Brian Ahier
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Sequester could doom funding for promising cancer research
An advanced stage cancer diagnosis used to be almost a death sentence, but that wouldn't have to be the case if we were wise in sustaining cancer research funding.
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Post date: April 25, 2013
Deborah J. Cornwall
Blog
Measuring the quality of doctors and hospitals: When is 'good enough' good enough?
In the past, neither hospitals nor practicing physicians were accustomed to being measured and judged. Aside from periodic inspections by the Joint Commission, hospitals did not publicly report their quality data, and payment was based on volume, not performance.
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Post date: April 3, 2013
Bob Wachter, MD
Blog
Data Integration: Helping healthcare organizations reduce readmissions
A total of $280 million in hospital readmissions penalties will be paid by 2,213 hospitals this year as a result of the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program administered by CMS. Healthcare organizations have two options for reduction of readmissions rates.
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Post date: March 27, 2013
Gary Palgon
Blog
Hospice quality reporting deadline fast approaching
Hospices take note: the April 1, 2013 deadline to submit the NQF #0209 data for Payment Year 2014 in the Hospice Quality Reporting Program, or HQRP, is approximately two weeks away.
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Post date: March 14, 2013
Richard Pizzi
Blog
OIG finds one-third of nursing home stays had inadequate care
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.
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Post date: March 4, 2013
David Harlow
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Do Canadian primary care offices really discriminate against the poor?
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.
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Post date: February 27, 2013
David Williams
Blog
Is the patient safety movement in danger of flickering out?
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.
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Post date: February 18, 2013
Bob Wachter, MD
Blog
Two recurring medical real estate themes: Satellite clinics and health system mergers
I’ve been noticing two reoccurring themes in medical real estate: satellite care clinics and consolidation of health systems and physician practices. Both of these issues correlate with the unknown long term effects of healthcare reform as hospitals implement provisions and transform their organizations into more efficient care entities.
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Post date: February 1, 2013
James Ellis and Aaron Razavi
Blog
Making clinicians get flu shots: More important than simply preventing the flu
I was recently speaking to the clinical leaders of a mid-sized hospital, and a senior administrator posed the question, “should we require our doctors and nurses to get flu shots?” The answer, I said, is yes, and it isn’t just to prevent the flu.
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Post date: January 22, 2013
Bob Wachter, MD
Blog
Getting charged for rework in a hospital
In Reducing surgical complications: How to make it happen faster, I contrasted the way a hospital gets paid for rework with what happens in a manufacturing environment.
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Post date: January 7, 2013
David Williams
Blog