The Joint Commission announced today the appointment of David W. Baker, MD, FACP, MPH, to the position of executive vice president for the Division of Healthcare Quality Evaluation. In this senior leadership position, Dr. Baker will oversee the Departments of Quality Measurement, Health Services Research and Standards and Survey Methods.

The Department of Health and Human Services has announced an extension for people who had trouble purchasing insurance through the federal HealthCare.gov website, reports Politico.

Ten hospitals in California were hit with administrative penalties totaling $700,000 due to medical errors.

Early medical image archiving was focused on one main goal: the display of images. No easy feat, especially as storage requirements grew and physicians began to expect images on-the-go through their tablets or phones, but the mission of sharing images remained clear.

Despite complaints from the American Medical Association and a few other provider organizations, healthcare organizations are in fact ready to switch to ICD-10 coding by Oct. 1, an official from the American Health Information Management Association testified before Congress this week.

Patients discharged from higher-quality hospitals or who received care in higher-quality nursing homes are less likely to be readmitted to a hospital within 30 days, according to a study published in AMJC Managed Markets Network.

States are cracking down on so-called physician dispensing of prescription drugs, or creating novel dosages of old drugs to get around cost controls on traditional ones, reports The New York Times.

The Federal Strategic Health Plan requires a more person-centered framework with stronger linkages to achieving the triple aim. Moreover, some realignment is necessary so activities more clearly reflect its stated visions and principles, according to suggestions from two workgroups at the Health IT Policy Committee meeting on Feb. 10.