quality care
Manor Care buyer puts staffing promises in writing
Bowing to pressure from the Service Employees International Union, investment firm The Carlyle Group has made some written promises regarding staffing, training and investment in its Manor Care... Read more...
Study: Blacks get poorer nursing home care
African-Americans in the U.S. often get lower-quality nursing home care than whites, according to a new study published in the journal Health Affairs. The wide-ranging study, which was funded by the... Read more...
Feds consider restructuring Medicare quality program
Two U.S. Senators have introduced legislation intended to tighten up the $400 million program responsible for providing Medicare technical assistance. The Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) was... Read more...
PA releases hospital-specific cardiac surgery costs
The state of Pennsylvania has released a new cardiac surgery performance report which for the first time includes hospital-specific payment data. According to the report, which was issued by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, the average payment for heart bypass procedures by commercial health plans was $30,247, and for valve-only procedures $41,651 during 2005. Medicare paid $29,175 for bypasses and $42, 433 for valve-only procedures. The state's hospital association …
... Read more...Doctors push law regulating retail clinics
Illinois-based retail clinics may soon find that there are a new set of eyes looking over their shoulder. Retail clinics, which are popping up in Wal-Marts, Walgreen's and CVS/Caremark pharmacies,... Read more...
SPOTLIGHT: Using patient satisfaction data to improve care
Hospitals have collected patient satisfaction for decades. But executives aren't always clear how to use this information to improve the care process. To leverage satisfaction data for quality care, facilities will need to let physicians know which satisfaction indicators are important--and give them specific feedback on how to get high ratings in those areas, experts say. Article
GAO: 10% of PCPs provide extra services
While most physicians provide care that falls within established guidelines, about one in ten provided more services than patients needed, according to a GAO study of recent Medicare data. The researchers found that inefficient physicians accounted for 10 percent of the primary care physician population and 2 to 6 percent of specialists.
To establish the efficiency measures, GAO researchers looked at the physician profiling systems used by 10 health care purchasing organizations. …
... Read more...Press Release: Larger Physician Practices May Provide Higher-Quality Care
Press Release: Larger Physician Practices May Provide Higher-Quality Care
... Read more...Consumers reluctant to use outcomes, cost data
Apparently, Americans don't like having to do homework any more than they did when they were children. A study of 1,000 adults, which was commissioned by Destiny Health and conducted by Opinion Research Corporation, has found that despite our concerns about healthcare costs, most people are reluctant to research cost and quality data even if it's readily available. Health officials have made a lot of noise about increasing transparency in the healthcare system, though two recent …
... Read more...Specialty hospitals spring up after ban ends
On Tuesday, the federal moratorium on government payments for doctor-owned, for-profit hospitals expired. Already, plans are underway in Indiana and Texas fro two new physician-owned hospitals. Cincinnati-based Prexus Health Partners is planning a 30-bed surgical hospital in New Albany, IN, and in Texas University Hospital Systems will be opening a 72-bed acute-care hospital in September.
Critics of specialty hospitals--including the AHA--say that doctor-owned hospitals have an …
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