Hospital Care
MassDevice.com Q&A: Venaxis CEO Steve Lundy
Of the 10.5 million cases of abdominal pain that present in American emergency rooms each year, only about 300,000 end up being confirmed as appendicitis. That means an expensive glut of ultimately unnecessary – and potentially cancer-causing – CT scans performed in ERs.
Medicare lays down the law on excessive hospital readmissions | MassDevice.com On Call
MASSDEVICE ON CALL — Hospitals across the country are feeling the heat for potentially unwarranted patient readmissions as more than 2,000 care centers are punished with a total of $227 million in fines.
The charges reflect Medicare’s penalty program, designed to encourage hospitals to emphasize quality of care over the number of patients treated.
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TYRX lands FDA win for antibacterial surgical envelope
The FDA granted 510(k) to New Jersey-based TYRX for its next-generation AIGISRx R Antibacterial Envelope, indicated to address high infection rates after pacemaker and implantable cardioverter defibrillator implantation surgeries.
Setbacks won’t derail healthcare reform, White House says | MassDevice.com On Call
MASSDEVICE ON CALL — White House press secretary Jay Carney defended the Affordable Care Act this week, asserting that a setback for the employer-based insurance mandates will not delay the over-arching reform time line.
State-based insurance exchanges are still set to kick off on October 1, despite the Obama administration’s softening of some deadlines regarding patient data gathering requirements.
Aggressive Medicare audits hurt good hospitals, officials say
Efforts to recover inappropriate Medicare reimbursements have even legitimate healthcare providers on edge, hospital officials told a Senate panel late last month. Excessively aggressive auditing practices cost hospitals time and money, and they may be harming patients, they warned.
The solution to keeping IV lines clear and infection-free? Make them slippery
By Tom Ulrich
Mobilizing on the back end of a disaster
A Father’s Day remembrance
by Charles Ornstein, ProPublica
This story was co-published with The Washington Post.
Scaling up quality improvement: How do we motivate providers?
Reducing health care costs doesn’t have to involve making sacrifices in patient safety or quality of care or holding clinicians to rigid guidelines. Over the past several years, Boston Children’s Hospital has rolled out a methodology known as Standardized Clinical Assessment and Management Plans (SCAMPs).
Patient and family engagement in ICUs
My father died 2 months ago and now with a bit of distance from that emotional event, it’s time to further reflect on technology to support patients and families in ICUs.
BIDMC has been speaking with a major foundation about creating a cross-disciplinary, multi-institutional, open source application to turn critical care data into wisdom for patients and families.
How might it work? Let me use my father as an example.