By Guest Post
July 30, 2015 |  6
by Christopher Moriates, MD Author of Understanding Value-Based Healthcare* The hospital chargemaster has become nearly a household term, following its turn as the villain in highly publicized features in Time magazine, The New York Times, and the The Daily Show. Nobody seems to like the chargemaster. But what exactly is it and how does it […]
By Guest Post
July 29, 2015 |  0
By Mimi Zander During my undergraduate studies at Rutgers University, I studied English, women’s and gender studies, and literary theory. As part of The Institute for Women’s Leadership Scholars Program, during class discussions, we would circle back to the idea of bridging theory and practice. The first step is identifying the problem. The next step […]
July 28, 2015 |  7
Sorta. A new study out today in JAMA you will want to know about: How has Medicare done on the inpatient side from 1999-2013? Medicare all-cause mortality?  DOWN
By Guest Post
July 23, 2015 |  0
by Frank Zadravecz, MPH Across industries, Big Data is widely believed to offer a higher form of intelligence and knowledge that can generate insights that were previously impossible. However, the current cacophony of patient alarms we experience on the wards is not as informative for medical providers as we would hope. Are these alarms adding […]
By Guest Post
July 17, 2015 |  0
by Howard Epstein, MD, FHM Last week, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) – the nation’s largest payer of healthcare services and the 800 pound gorilla in setting medical necessity and coverage policies – announced a proposal to begin paying for goals of care and advance care planning (ACP) discussions between medical providers […]
July 16, 2015 |  0
I have always had a bugaboo with mortality rates.  It is a clunky standard. We need death measures to serve as precise tools for quality improvement and hospital performance.  If a hospital has a standardized mortality rate of 3%, you can assume only a small percentage of individuals suffered their fate due to medical error. […]