By Jordan Rau – Over the past decade, the federal government has publicized 115 different ways to measure medical quality in hospitals, from assessing wait times in emergency rooms and noise levels outside hospital rooms to tracking blood clots in surgical patients. But the latest effort, to combine dozens of metrics into one patient-friendly quality indicator, has proven the most contentious.
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By John Halamka MD – Earlier this week, the American Medical Association CEO called digital healthcare products modern-day “snake oil”. As a provider and a technologist, I think we need a deeper dive to understand the issues, avoiding the kind of hyperbole that’s so common in politics today.
By David Squires & David Blumenthal MD – There’s a lot to absorb in the proposed rule for implementing “MACRA”—the sprawling, bipartisan law passed in 2015 aimed at moving Medicare physician payment from rewarding volume to rewarding value. One question attracting scrutiny is whether the reforms will favor larger practices at the expense of smaller ones.
By Andy Bindman MD – It has been nearly 16 years since the late John Eisenberg, M.D., AHRQ’s brilliant director from 1997 to 2002 and one of my early mentors, published an article in JAMA that remains a guidepost for me and others in the field even today. The article deserves quoting for its enduring message:
By Marlowe Greenberg – For the last several years, Foothold Technology has participated in the InterSystems Global Summit. It’s an invitation-only event where leaders convene to discuss and learn how to tackle healthcare IT challenges. Like previous years, we participated in two tracks at the conference.
By Matt Fisher – A patient contacts their physician’s office and asks for a copy of their medical record. The expected response would seem to be obvious. Sure, we will copy the record and send it to your shortly. Not only will the record be sent, but it will be sent in an easily accessible format and exactly as requested.
By Susan Jaffe – Looking for ways to save money and improve care, Medicare officials are returning to an old-fashioned idea: house calls. But the experiment, called Independence at Home, is more than a nostalgic throwback to the way medicine was practiced decades ago when the doctor arrived at the patient’s door carrying a big black bag.
By Elise Sweeney Anthony & Steven Posnack – Health IT developers must now comply with enhanced transparency requirements associated with their products. It is applicable to the 2014 Edition, as well as newly issued 2015 Edition of standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria.
By Sara Rosenbaum – The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services introduced a final Medicaid managed care rule establishing a new regulatory framework for the next generation of managed care. A policy watershed, the rule ultimately will touch the lives of tens of millions of low-income children and adults, and individuals with disabilities.