Quality and Safety
The U.S. healthcare system comes in last for performance among seven industrialized nations, despite spending the most, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report. The researchers note that healthcare reform and uptake of health information technology hold promise for the future.
Residents of Buena Vista, Lamar, Leadville and Del Norte, Colo. are among the latest wave of communities nationwide that have recently gained access to innovative telehealth services.
TriMedx Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides healthcare equipment to hospitals in Third World countries, and whose mission is to offer "hope and health through medical technology," recently reached its goal of impacting more than one million lives.
Making the assumption that electronic medical records can improve healthcare costs and errors is premature, according to a dermatologist practicing in Florida.
Tragedy struck a critical access hospital in Maine, when a medical overdose killed a man earlier this month. Hospital officials are reportedly calling the death a result of human error, and a spokesman for the hospital says it is difficult to say whether or not having an electronic health records system in place would have prevented this from happening.
Healthcare reform might seem tough, but it is necessary to repair a misaligned healthcare system, former president Bill Clinton told the nation's health insurance industry leaders Thursday. Other speakers also took up that refrain and noted that the use of information technology is part of reform.
The Premier Healthcare Alliance recognized 21 of the nation's top hospitals and three health systems for their commitment to outstanding patient care and operational efficiency with the 2010 Premier Award for Quality. Healthcare information technology underpins the patient care and organizational measures.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have extended The Joint Commission's requirement to implement CMS telemedicine standards for both general and critical access hospitals until March 2011.
Achieving a successful implementation of health IT requires a little imagination. That's what Secretary Aneesh Chopra is expected to declare in his opening keynote address at tomorrow's HIMSS Virtual Conference and Expo.
Six healthcare organizations have been named as finalists for the 2010 HIMSS Davies Ambulatory Care and HIMSS Davies Public Health Awards of Excellence, recognizing their use of electronic health records.