Healthcare Trends

Apparently happy with its existing results, Aetna has set plans to include more providers in its pay-for-performance program, expanding it out to family practice and internal medicine physicians based in Washington state. It already offers the program in Cincinnati, Atlanta, Louisville, Ky., Maryland, Washington, DC and northern Virginia. Aetna's P4P program bases its standards on guidelines from the NCQA, American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association and American Stroke …

Increasingly, hospital CEOs are finding that their bonuses depend on how well they do at creating a safe environment for care. In the past, CEOs could expect to do well if their facility was profitable and beds were full, but today, with regulatory pressure mounting and public scrutiny on the rise, safety has become an important part of their job. Across the country, roughly half of hospital CEOs must meet safety goals--such as the number of patients wearing bar-coded wrist-bands or …

To most consumers, emergency medical technicians are heroes, the fast-thinking, on-the-spot pros who can be counted on to make sure their injuries don't get worse. In many situations, that may be the case, but what about when an EMT or paramedic lets patients get hurt unnecessarily, uses drugs or neglects their duties? In California, it seems, officials may never find out. And even if they do find out, there may be little they can do about it.

As it turns out, California doesn't …

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's health system reform proposals hit a snag this week, with the state's medical society announcing that it opposed the plans despite some doctor-friendly concessions. Blagojevich is pushing a plan, known as "Illinois Covered," which would extend Medicaid to all adults below the federal poverty line and offer new state insurance to many working families. It would also subsidize private insurance costs for other families. Insurance companies would have to offer …

Concerned that they aren't addressing the different ways various ethnic groups respond to medication, researchers are mounting major efforts to recruit varied racial and ethnic groups for clinical trials. Right now, the average clinical trial volunteer is a white male between 18 to 40 years old--and this is a problem. Researchers have increasingly found that race and ethnicity can be important factors in how a patient responds to medications, with some drugs functioning better in certain …

Most physicians will tell you that free drug samples are an important part of their practice. After all, patients who get samples can avoid co-pays, and more importantly, can begin treatment immediately. However, critics are increasingly protesting this practice, arguing that such samples prompt doctors to prescribe the new medications on hand rather than choosing the drug indicated by medical evidence. What's more, critics say, older drugs may sometimes be safer, as their side effects …

While many public health officials are excited about the Gardasil's potential to prevent cervical cancer, doctors are increasingly refusing to offer it to patients--including the pediatricians and gynecologists who are its most likely prescribers. These doctors say that reimbursements for the expensive vaccine are not high enough to justify the stocking and administrative costs of carrying it. For example, some insurance companies are reimbursing doctors $122 per shot, or just $2 more …

Like its peers elsewhere in the country, a New York-area health system has begun aggressive plans to upgrade its packaging, hoping to attract more patients by offering high-end amenities more typical of an upscale hotel. These include a dozen projects under way or recently completed by North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System. For example, rooms at the North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset's $11 million, 22-bed medical-surgical unit offer wood paneling, comfortable chairs and …

Not sure where you stand on pay-for-performance schemes? It seems that many of your peers have made up their mind. A new survey, conducted at the Fourth Annual World Health Care Congress in Washington, DC, found that about half of health purchasers and providers would like to see P4P use move ahead more quickly. Sixty-nine percent of the event's attendees said that the federal government should be moving more quickly into P4P-based reimbursement.

That doesn't mean the entire …

New research by healthcare quality measurement firm Press Ganey Associates has concluded that patients' perceptions of U.S. hospitals improved slightly last year, despite some entrenched complaints which don't seem to be going away over time. Patients gave hospitals an overall rating of 84.2 out of 100 points, up 1.2 points from five years ago. At the same time, however, patients continue to be dissatisfied with room conditions, food quality and problems in the discharge …