​MIPS, the Medicare physician reimbursement program set to begin in 2019, is causing healthcare providers to consider the use of registries, if they haven't already, as part of their workflow practices.

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Hospital leaders can gain many advantages from aggregating financial, clinical and operational data to create dashboards that help them run their CV service line more effectively.

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The bundled-payment program for cardiac care will go forward despite the Trump administration and the confirmation of new Health & Human Services Secretary Tom  Price, a critic of the program. July 1 remains the start date for the initiative, according to an HHS official who spoke to Modern Healthcare.

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Heart hospital across the country are preparing for the new mandatory bundled-payment program for cardiac care. Set to begin this July, the program makes hospitals in certain markets accountable for the quality and cost of care for bypass and heart attack patients until 90 days after discharge.

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President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Seema Verma to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid has been largely overshadowed by his choice of Rep. Tom Price for director of the Department of Health and Human Services. But for those reading the tea leaves about the future of healthcare, especially the Affordable Care Act, Verma’s selection is well worth examining.

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Patient safety is once again in the news with the recent release of the Leapfrog Group's Fall 2016 Hospital Safety Grade List. Almost all the hospitals on the list received a passing grade. Of the 2,633 hospitals evaluated, 844 earned an "A," 658 earned a "B," 954 earned a "C," 157 earned a "D" and 20 earned an "F."

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Appropriate Use Criteria (AUC) is intended to help physicians achieve the best outcomes using the most appropriate treatment plan for any situation. Ensuring that physicians comply with established AUC guidelines is crucial to the overall success of a facility.

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GAO Recommends Corrective Action by Department of Health and Human Services More than 113 million electronic health records were breached in 2015, a year that saw a total of 56 cybersecurity attacks in healthcare alone. That's a 13-fold increase from 2006 to 2015. The Government Accountability Office isn't going to let those cybersecurity failures go unremarked upon. The GAO last week came down hard on the Department of Health and Human Services, pointing out a number of weaknesses in efforts by HHS to help health plans and other providers protect data. "HHS has established an oversight program for compliance with privacy and security regulations, but its actions did not always fully verify that the regulations were implemented," wrote the GAO in a report released Sept. 26. The report also called out HHS for giving technical assistance "that was not pertinent to identified problems" in cybersecurity, and for failing to follow up on cases it investigated. In short, the GAO... read more

How Integrated Systems Can Help Medical errors are dangerous, deadly, and all too common. Research published in The Journal of Health Care Finance found that these mistakes cost the United States $19.5 billion in 2008 alone. A 2016 study estimated that medical errors cause 251,000 deaths a year in the U.S., where they are the third-leading cause of death (after heart disease and cancer). To Err is Human, the groundbreaking report by the Institute of Medicine, found that nearly half of all deaths attributed to medical errors were preventable. What's even more disturbing is the limited improvement that has occurred since the publication of that 1999 report. "The overall numbers haven't changed, and that's discouraging and alarming," Kenneth Sands of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center told the Washington Post. Mickey Norris, National Vice President of Sales for LUMEDX, discusses how a CVIS can help reduce medical errors. Medical errors can obviously result from... read more

Predictive Analytics Q: How much of the healthcare industry has adopted predictive analytics? A: By definition, negotiations between providers and payers are a game of who can better predict patient outcomes. Win-win scenarios can certainly be devised, but a lack of predictive ability puts an organization at risk for poor contract structuring. Clinical outcomes are increasingly a game of predicting outcomes and identifying the levers that affect those outcomes so providers are able to improve on future outcomes. Operational predictions are also important, as misunderstanding patient care needs can lead to expensive outlier care patterns or care variations that break capacity management efforts and budgets. Q: How do you see predictive analytics having an impact on healthcare organizations, and specifically on heart hospitals? A: Outcome prediction and risk profiling will increasingly guide care pathway selection and tailor care patterns to targeted patient profiles. ... read more