News From Around the Web
> A group of academic medical centers--including The Ohio State University and Vanderbilt University--have teamed up to create a new online autism registry with a goal of increasing research participation rates. The registry will actually be a sub-registry within ResearchMatch, a national database that connects patients with ongoing research for a variety of diseases. Announcement
> Electronic health record vendor Allscripts is helping to create a new healthcare technology laboratory in Singapore that will focus on developing new software for public hospitals to improve patient care. The lab will begin operations next month, and will be staffed and funded by both Allscripts and Integrated Health Information Systems, which manages IT systems for all public hospitals in Singapore. Announcement
Provider News
> The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services' Office of Inspector General warns that physician-owned distributorships (PODs) that sell implantable medical devices are full of opportunities to enrich referring physicians with illegal kickbacks. PODs are "inherently suspect under the anti-kickback statute," according to an OIG special fraud alert, published yesterday. Article
> Despite recent emphasis on letting people pass away in a hospice or at home, and patients' preference for it, the number of people who have died in hospitals over the past 10 years has only fallen 8 percent, federal statistics published by the National Center for Health Statistics have shown. Using data from an annual survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control, the report revealed hospital deaths decreased from 776,000 in 2000 to 715,000 in 2010, despite an 11 percent increase in hospitalization. Article
Health Finance News
> The two percent pending cuts to Medicare payments as a result of the budget sequestration are expected to affect the bottom line of some hospitals to the tune of millions of dollars a year, but a variety of reports suggest hospital finance leaders will be able to cope with the reductions for now. The sequestration triggered $85 billion in across-the-board cuts to federal spending, including $11 billion to the Medicare program. Article
And Finally… Anybody want a peanut? Article