Eligible hospitals that have already attested to meaningful use in 2011 through the Medicare EHR Incentive Program via GE Healthcare ITs Centricity Practice Solution and Centricity EMR may want to think twice before closing the books on that initiative.

Five hundred community health centers in 44 states across the country will receive approximately $42 million over three years to improve the coordination and quality of care to Medicare patients, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced.

Because the Medicare Shared Savings Program final rule will no longer require a mandatory antitrust review for certain collaborations as a condition of entry into the program, the final policy statement no longer contains provisions relating to mandatory antitrust review, according to a final policy statement from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DoJ).

Multiple payment models with the accountable care organization (ACO) program is a big hit to Premier healthcare alliance, a hospital and healthcare stakeholder-owned performance improvement organization, which released a statement on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) final rule on ACO requirements.

Gary and Mary West, co-founders of the West Wireless Health Institute, have formed the West Investment Fund, a $100 million investment fund that will provide risk capital for innovative healthcare technology companies that offer the potential to lower the cost of healthcare.

The two principal methods for ranking hospitals based on a composite performance measure for coronary artery disease (CAD) appear to be similarly capable of stratifying according to process of care, but neither showed a strong correlation with 30-day risk-standardized mortality or readmission rates, according to a study published Oct. 18 in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. The authors urged that more studies be done to better understand measures ability to discriminate quality.

The U.S. healthcare system is not well designed to provide equitable care, as evidenced by the prevalence of disparities in care by race, ethnicity, language and social status, according to a study in the October issue of The Joint CommissionJournal on Quality and Patient Safety. As the United States invests in the design and implementation of health IT, consideration must be given to the impact that these innovations have on the quality and cost of healthcare for all patients, including those who experience disparities, wrote the study authors.

Big changes were made on the ground level of accountable care organization (ACO) activity this week. While the final ACO rule was released Oct. 20, a report from the Institute for Health Technology Transformation released this week outlined generalizable ACO characteristics and recommendations to providers interested in applying for ACO status.