A small study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that price transparency tools can put a significant dent in medical costs, reports The Washington Post. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that a Texas nurse who treated an Ebola-stricken Liberian man has tested positive for Ebola, according to the Washington Post.

Research shows that value-oriented payment systems are on the rise, with 40 cents of every healthcare dollar now tied in some way to value—up from only 11 cents one year ago, according to Forbes.

The National Community for Quality Assurance, a private non-profit organization focused on improving healthcare quality, has ranked Tufts Health Plan and Harvard Pilgrim as the top insurers based on their quality measures from three performance subcategories—consumer experience, prevention and treatment—and NCQA accreditation.

Putting hospital staff seeking to file an appeal request on hold for six hours, no secure way to file documentation electronically, lost paperwork, taking 10 days to issue a discharge appeal decision and other serious customer service issues have led the American Hospital Association (AHA) and the Federation of American Hospitals (FAH) to conclude that the transition to the new national Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) program contractors for Beneficiary and Family Centered Care is “not working as it should.”

John Hopkins researchers interviewed 177 hospitalized patients on their day of discharge and found that while most described themselves as “very satisfied” with their care, the degree to which they shared understanding with their clinicians of their diagnoses, medication indications and tests/procedures was fairly low.

In a letter sent to hospitals participating in the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) says it is suspending data collection for the Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock: Management Bundle measure (NQF #0500) until further notice.

Quality and safety improvement begins with accurate measurement of the problem, including recording every incident regardless of whether a patient was seriously harmed or not. However, recent data from Massachussetts shows that better measurement can create a drastic increase in the rate of adverse events — in this case an attention grabing jump of 70 percent in one year.