Health IT adoption varies by state and urbanicity, with less computerized provider order entry (CPOE) in rural emergency departments (EDs), according to research published in the August edition of Annals of Emergency Medicine.

In the hot-bed of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) legal arena, two appeals court decisions were filed on Aug. 12 indicating the fractious nature of the constitutionality of the individual mandate provision.

Many providers continue to operate at a significant loss, and although nearly 70 percent of specialties saw increases in compensation in 2010, increases were marginal, according to the American Medical Group Associations (AMGA) 2011 Medical Group Compensation and Financial Survey.

Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) recently sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, requesting that HHS study the benefits of health IT and its cost effectiveness, with a focus on medical error rates.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has submitted comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently on the proposed rule on Availability of Medicare Data for Performance Measurement, expressing support and constructive criticism for CMS' new authority to release Medicare data for reporting data measuring physician performance, called for under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is the federal governments response to the shortcomings in achieving high-quality healthcare across the U.S. However, according to an Aug. 9 commentary in the Journal of American Medical Association, PPACAs quality focus is overshadowed by concerns about pervasive and persistent disparities in care, including such factors as sex, race/ethnicity, social class, insurance status and language.

As the deadline to transition to ICD-10 creeps up on providers, healthcare liaisons urged that planning will be the bolt that keeps the entire process together and leads to a hospitals success. This concept was presented Aug. 10 at The HIMSS Virtual Briefing: Critical Factors of the ICD-10 Conversion.

Achieving higher quality patient-centered care, improving population health and moderating per capita costs requires fundamental change in the U.S. healthcare system. An Aug. 9 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association cited the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act description of accountable care organizations (ACOs) as a model of care that will accept cost and quality of care responsibilities for defined patient populations.