News From Around The Web
> It's back to the basics for Memorial Hospital in Belleville, Ill., as computer problems have forced doctors to use paper charts, the Belleville News-Democrat reported this week. According to the article, he electronic health record system went down June 11 and is not expected to be restored until June 24. Article
> Healtheway--the non-profit, public-private partnership that operationally supports the eHealth Exchange--has announced the founding members of its private/public health IT exchange, including: the American Medical Association; Epic; ICA; Kaiser Permanente; MedVirginia; Mirth Corporation; New York eHealth Collaborative; Orion Health; and WEDI. Announcement
Health Finance News
> The Healthcare Financial Management Association has established a task force to address price transparency issues for hospitals, physicians, employer groups and patients, and eventually issue guidelines for the sector. The announcement was made by HFMA Chief Executive Officer Joseph F. Fifer at the group's annual national institute in Orlando on Tuesday. Article
> The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has concluded that the financial penalties for readmissions levied against hospitals that serve the poor are too onerous and should be reversed. According to the MedPAC report, low-income patients were harder to keep tabs on post-admission, because they often cannot afford medications or have easy access to physicians. As a result, MedPAC found that hospitals with a Medicare patient load that was below 3 percent low income received an average readmission penalty of 0.21 percent of its Medicare payments. But hospitals where more than 18 percent of the Medicare patients were low-income had an average penalty of 0.45 percent. Article
Mobile Healthcare News
> Of the eight most prevalent health conditions globally, diabetes and depression have an overwhelming number of mobile applications and research, while there is a lack of apps and research related to other conditions such as anemia, hearing loss and low vision, according to research published recently in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. The most prevalent conditions, as established by the World Health Organization: iron-deficiency anemia, hearing loss, migraine, low vision, asthma, diabetes mellitus, osteoarthritis (OA), and unipolar depressive disorders. Nevertheless, the "distribution of work on mobile applications is not equal for the eight most prevalent conditions," the article's authors said. Article
And Finally... When it comes to scandal, U.S. politicians have nothing on their counterparts across the pond. Article