News From Around the Web
> Westlake Regional Hospital in Columbia, Kentucky, has the cleanest patient rooms in the country, with 98 percent of patients reporting their room and bathrooms were "always" clean, according to Becker's Hospital Review, which based its finding on 2013 data from Hospital Compare. Westlake's 98 percent surpassed the national average of 74 percent of patients reporting their rooms were "always" clean. Article
> Former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg has been appointed foreign secretary of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, according to an announcement from IOM. Statement
> The United States spends an estimated $4 billion each year on false-positive mammograms and breast cancer overdiagnoses, a rate much higher than previously documented, and this new information should be considered to determine appropriate populations for screening, according to a new study published in Health Affairs. Study Abstract
Health Finance News
> The Pacific Business Group on Health has expanded a value-based purchasing program to include one of the priciest procedures that occurs in a hospital--spinal surgeries. Article
> The more than two dozen states that have expanded Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act are apparently reaping extensive financial gains from doing so. Article
And Finally… Don't bee scared. Article