News From Around the Web
> Doctors and pharmacists in Florida are spurning use of a prescription drug database, with only 10 percent of the former and one-third of the latter actually using the tool, Health News Florida reported this week. The database was set up in 2010 by the state to track distribution of narcotic pain pills to patients. Article
> U.S. News & World Report this week announced it is teaming up with online doctor network Doximity to create a free online directory of practicing physicians to be made available to consumers. The directory will host information for more than 700,000 U.S. doctors. Announcement
> The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago are teaming up to develop methods for creating an interoperable data infrastructure for patient-centered outcomes research, EHR Intelligence reported. ONC will seek public input on documents posted throughout the collaboration. Article
Provider News
> The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services released an updated action plan to combat infections acquired during the course of receiving healthcare services. The plan, known as the "National Action Plan to Prevent Health Care-Associated Infections: Road Map to Elimination," aims to stem the rate of infections acquired inside hospitals, outpatient settings and nursing homes. More than 1 million such infections occur each year, and cost as much as $33 billion to treat. Article
> While the threat of reduced Medicare reimbursements for hospitals with high rates of readmissions under the Affordable Care Act already has produced results, new research calls on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to rethink how it determines readmission penalties. For patients with pneumonia, one of the three conditions included in CMS' hospital readmissions reduction program, the risk of readmission increases after healthcare-associated pneumonia (HCAP) versus community-acquired pneumonia, according to a study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. Article
And Finally… I'd hate to be the mail carrier having to deliver all of those packages. Article