Quality and Safety

A longtime proponent of evidence-based medicine, Donald Berwick, MD, former administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, believes his home state's healthcare system can be a "model for the nation."

There's a commonly held perception that healthcare is a process in which doctors take care of patients. But increasingly healthcare stakeholders are figuring out that, at times, a more effective way to help patients get healthy is to show them how to take care of themselves.

Atul Gawande, MD, professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and staff writer at The New Yorker, offered a reflective presentation earlier this month at Health Datapalooza IV, taking the audience back through what the healthcare system used to look like, and showing and how data innovations have helped set the stage for big transformations.

U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, MD, has announced plans to step down in July, after four years as the nation's top voice for public health.

Calling it a landmark move, the HIMSS EHR Association, a collaboration of more than 40 EHR companies, released an EHR Developer Code of Conduct. The code is a reflection of the industry's commitment to collaborate as trusted partners with all stakeholders, says Mickey McGlynn, chair of the organization.

Remember when doctors made house calls? It's probably safe not to expect the return of those days any time soon, but some healthcare stakeholders are saying the time has come for providers to take a more active role in their patients' healthcare.

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute has approved a $1.6 million research award to the Children's Discovery and Innovation Institute at Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA to study the use of videoconferencing technology to deliver behavioral health services to pediatric patients in community primary care settings.

Certain self-monitoring blood glucose systems, even though they meet accuracy standards upon FDA clearance, fail to consistently meet those standards once on the market, according to the Diabetes Technology Society.

Insecure IT systems have left hospitals lousy with viruses and malware. Implantable medical devices are vulnerable to hackers and cyber criminals. How real is the danger? And what's being done to fight it?

More than half of all eligible providers nationwide have received federal incentive payments for demonstrating meaningful use of electronic health records, rates that have more than doubled since last year alone, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Wednesday.