CMS has approved an extension of Maryland’s model of offering a fixed payment for most hospital services, allowing physician practices and nursing homes to voluntarily participate in a program that has saved Medicare hundreds of millions of dollars.

Microsoft has announced a new program to fund research into using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve care for those with disabilities.

Virtual health visits cost $110 less than conventional primary care appointments, while also reducing patient wait times and helping address the nursing shortage, according to CNBC.

Consumer sleep technologies like wearables and mobile apps are adept at collecting patient-generated health data, but lacking validation data and FDA clearance are hindering utilization, according to a position statement published in the May 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.

Recording physicians during patient visits could reducing physician burnout while improving care quality. But polices regulating how to collect, manage and store such information present barriers to utilization, according to an article published May 14 in The BMJ.

The “zero year” of the OneCare Vermont system, operated much like an accountable care organization (ACO) on a statewide level, saw the program come within 1 percent of its financial target. With the model now expanded to cover about 18 percent of the state’s residents, other states are watching closely to see if it could be implemented elsewhere in the U.S.

The Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program (HFAP) has released the 2018 edition of its annual quality report, illustrating how deficiencies were most commonly found at the hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) it inspects.

Cerner owns 17.3 percent of the $29.7 billion global electronic health record (EHR) market, according to the annual Kalorama Information market share report, though No. 2 Epic leads the market for smaller hospitals and physician practices.

Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute, in a study published online May 10 in Octogene, developed spheroids that can be used for high throughput screening, which uses the structures to test for reactions to various drugs.

Iowa’s “supplemental payment plan” for nursing homes was rejected by CMS over concerns about having county hospitals assume the licenses of for-profit nursing homes.