The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed rule aims to align the physician quality reporting system with similar quality reporting initiatives to reduce the burden on providers, according to an Aug. 7 National Provider Call.

Emerging healthcare payment models underscore the widespread belief that reducing hospital admissions will reduce healthcare costs, and although there is not a one-size-fits-all solution to accomplishing this goal, there are lessons hospitals can look to, according to a CSC report published in July.

BOSTONSuccessful mHealth innovation projects start with an idea to enhance patient care, move from idea to development with clinician assistance and end with a practical tool that makes clinicians jobs easier. Childrens Hospital Boston Chief Innovation Officer Naomi Fried, PhD, and her co-panelists shared their tips for mhealth innovators on July 25 at the 4th annual mHealth World Congress.

Medicare works better for its beneficiaries than private insurance. Those enrolled in Medicare were more likely to receive care, had fewer problems accessing care due to cost, were less likely to be financially burdened by medical bills and more likely to be satisfied with their insurance than those enrolled in employer sponsored insurance plans, according to an article published in the July issue of Health Affairs.

While physician profiling programs have the potential to positively influence physician behavior and facilitate practice improvements, the information contained within physician data reports can be difficult to understand and utilize. To improve these potentially useful tools, the American Medical Association (AMA) has published guidelines for reporting physician data.

Imagine a mechanical healthcare system in which each component interacts predictably with another to produce a predictable output that can be adjusted by tweaking a specific component. That system does not exist and treating the existing complex system as such sets it up for failure, according to a July 18 viewpoint published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Hospitals treating a sample group of 780 Medicare patients in October 2008 severely underreported adverse events, despite the fact that the states in which the problems occurred require rigorous reporting. So said Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) in a report released July 19.

A master patient registry could be made available to researchers if an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality request to create such a database is approved by the Office of Management and Budget.