Magazine/Newspaper
While any restructuring of the payment system will create incentives that alter providers' behaviors, bundled payments—single, all-inclusive payments for multiple services across an episode of care—are likely to have profound influences on the health care workforce. Here I contend…
Oregon's community hospitals are committed to working together to produce high-quality patient care to all the patients that access their services. Our mission is to share best-practices, work across boundaries, and create a safe and transparent environment for effective clinical change and…
The current understanding of what drives readmission focuses on the quality of the inpatient discharge process and on patients' health status. Health care administrators have relied on this narrow framework to conclude that the best approach to reduce readmission rates is to improve the…
Steve Riney, Chief Information Officer at Methodist Medical Center of Illinois in Peoria, talks to H&HN Senior Editor Suzanna Hoppszallern about how his system's ACO partnership with Caterpillar aims to improve health outcomes for thousands of the manufacturer's employees while…
John Combes, M.D., president of the Center for Healthcare Governance, talks to H&HN Senior Online Editor Haydn Bush about the 'On the CUSP: Stop BSI' program to eliminate central line-associated bloodstream infections in all U.S. hospitals by addressing cultural and technical issues and keeping…
Ascension Health has some lofty goals: cut serious safety events by 40 percent by 2014. This comes after preventable deaths dropped by more than 1,500 patients annually. Jane Jeffries, editor of Trustee, spoke with Ciro Sumaya, M.D., chair of Ascension's board quality committee about the drive…
Vermont begins building a single-payer health system that will move many state residents into a publicly financed insurance program and pay hospitals, doctors and other providers a set fee to care for patients.
Could changing the staffing model in the intensive care unit reduce patients' risk of dying?According to the Leapfrog Group for Patient Safety, ICUs staffed with intensivists (also known as critical care physicians) can reduce mortality by 40 percent. This practice also is endorsed by the…
This brief, based on site visits from Nov. 2009 through March 2010, highlights care coordination and related efforts in five states: Alabama, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington State. Such efforts by states to realign the provider payment and delivery systems are key to improving…
The U.S. is facing an epidemic of chronic disease at the same time as it's facing tough decisions on where to spend limited public health dollars. This issue brief spotlights community programs shown to help reduce chronic disease.