Donald M. Berwick, MD, former administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and a group of health care policy experts discuss whether accountable care organizations (ACOs) are the answer to fixing the nation’s health care system.

 

TeamSTEPPS (Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety), an evidence-based program being implemented nationally by the AHA’s Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET), is offering free patient safety training courses for hospitals and other health care providers. Standard and advanced training sessions are available through September 1 at six regional training centers.

 

For more information, contact the HRET National Implementation Team at [email protected] or (312) 422-2609.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently issued a progress report on its efforts to reduce regulatory burdens, as ordered by the president a year ago. Noted changes include final rules implementing a new credentialing/privileging process for physicians who provide telemedicine services, and removing the new physician signature requirement for clinical laboratory tests. The report also highlighted a proposed rule revising the Medicare Conditions of Participation for hospitals. According to the report, HHS plans to release four proposed rules easing regulatory burdens early this year. They include a rule that merges the Healthcare Integrity and Protection Data Bank into the National Practitioner Data Bank, Food and Drug Administration rules amending the performance standards for laser products and establishing preventive controls for food facilities, and a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rule allowing the use of digital radiography in medical screening of coal miners for lung disease.

CMS redistributes residency slots from closed teaching hospitals

Jeffrey S. Rose, MD, vice president of clinical excellence and informatics at Ascension Health, discusses four ways hospitals can encourage the use of evidence-based medicine to increase quality of care, patient safety and savings.

 

Publicly traded physician management companies are positioning themselves to participate in accountable care organizations (ACOs) by expanding into areas of hospital-based medicine that have not traditionally been their focus.

 

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