If early projections hold true, the nation's safety net will expand to include one in three uninsured in the coming decade, bringing new revenue to hospitals that previously relied on write-offs and subsidies to manage patients' unpaid bills. But state budget woes are adding uncertainty.
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Richard Raskin, vice president of medical affairs at Genesis HealthCare Corp. in Andover, Mass., is all in favor of advance directives.
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During the course of an average workday, Becky Cline sifts through plastic shopping bags full of medication bottles, reviews lengthy post-discharge plans, coordinates follow-up appointments, and acts out various role-playing scenarios with patients in order to educate them on the red flags of their...
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In January 2009, HHS published a final rule outlining the steps the healthcare industry must take to update the electronic data transmissions standards used by the financial systems of hospitals, physician offices, claims clearinghouses and payers. The 34-page final rule called for a 36-month...
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Although nursing care has always been one of the larger single expenses in acute-care hospitals, some experts have never been satisfied with how nurses' services have been lumped into the same overall “room and board” charges as routine hospital costs.
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Earlier this month, HHS' Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration released a startling statistic: in 2007, suicides in the U.S. accounted for more than 34,500 deaths, nearly double the amount of homicides. That figure represents about a 4.5% increase in suicides from the previous...
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A new government steps into power and immediately mounts an overhaul of the nation's healthcare system of historic proportions. The changes are promised to improve the efficiency and quality of care while eliminating waste in the system. This is Britain now, not the U.S. circa 2009.
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They may never become the rule, but billion-dollar hospitals are no longer that exceptional—especially in California and Texas.
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The nine winners of this year's annual awards for outstanding achievement in applied medical informatics from the Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems share a common theme, according to AMDIS President William Bria—they know how to employ information technology to get the...
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Ted Kremer is the executive director of the Greater Rochester (N.Y.) Regional Health Information Organization, which is providing health information exchange services to a 10-county area in western New York.
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