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.

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.

A data report released by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Peterson Center on Healthcare showed the U.S. has higher prices for many healthcare services compared to other high-income countries, including on MRIs and joint replacements, and how some prices have risen faster than inflation.

As a candidate, President Donald Trump had criticized pharma companies for “getting away with murder.” In remarks on Friday, May 11, he did bash the industry’s lobbying power while also lumping in insurance companies, distributors and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) as part of the “broken system” that has sent drug prices soaring.

The lack of resources and financial difficulties were reported as the top factors hindering implementation of patient portals, according to a study published May 10 in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

The “Just Culture” model to encourage healthcare professionals to report mistakes to focus on improving processes, not punishment, hasn’t worked, according to a study authored by Marc Edwards, MD, MBA, of the QA to QI Patient Safety Organization.

Year-over-year price growth was 2.2 percent in April 2018, which Altarum said was fractionally above the March rate, setting a six-year high for price growth in the sector. Hospital price growth fell slightly to 3.7 percent.

Four years into its integration into the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) health system, Children’s Hospital Oakland physicians are complaining they’re being treated as less important than those at its sister institution, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, driving away researchers and other physicians.