SHM & Hospital Medicine in the News: April 14 – 28, 2016
This issue of SHM & Hospital Medicine in the News features:
- A Medscape feature on the growth and evolution of the hospital medicine specialty, including commentary from SHM leaders and data from the State of Hospital Medicine Report
- The increasing presence of psychiatric hospitalists on medical wards in an attempt to reduce length of stay
- Medscape coverage and analysis of the April #JHMChat, the quarterly tweet chat with the Journal of Hospital Medicine, focused on perioperative medicine
- News from the CMS, including the official announcement of the successor of meaningful use and the discontinuation of inpatient payment cuts to hospitals under the two-midnight rule
- How the shift to value-based payment could lead to a decrease in hospital admissions
- A regional news outlet’s feature story highlighting hospitalists’ positive contributions to area hospitals and patients’ positive experiences under their care
Hospitalists: Riding the Wave of Changes in Healthcare
Hospitalists and their specialty, hospital medicine, are in the throes of reinventing the physician’s role. Hospital medicine is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. The number of physicians in the specialty has mushroomed to 52,000, making it “the fastest-growing specialty of all time,” according to Lawrence Wellikson, MD, chief executive of their specialty group, the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM). Hospitalists started by providing round-the-clock primary care to hospital inpatients, and now that model has spread to such specialties as obstetrics, orthopedic surgery, and neurology.
April 26, 2016
Medscape
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Hospitals Test Putting Psychiatrists on Medical Wards
Some leading hospitals have begun placing psychiatrists and other mental-health professionals into medical units to identify psychological problems early in a patient’s stay. Mental-health professionals working on the front lines with medical doctors improve care and help reduce the time patients need to stay in the hospital, studies suggest. Some practitioners also say the approach might cut the likelihood patients will need to be readmitted.
April 25, 2016
The Wall Street Journal
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Chatting About the Current State of Perioperative Medicine
Perioperative medicine is becoming its own unique specialty within internal medicine. New data and new interpretations of existing data have transformed perioperative medicine into a dynamic field. To stay abreast of the latest in the field, the Journal of Hospital Medicine (@JHospMedicine) hosted a 1-hour Twitter chat (#JHMChat) on April 4. The focus of the chat was a recent article coauthored by Dr. Kurt Pfeifer (@KurtPfeifer) on the current state of perioperative medicine.
April 22, 2016
Medscape
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CMS Reveals Successor for Meaningful Use Program
As part of the proposed rule on the implementation of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), the meaningful use electronic health records (EHR) incentive program will be folded into the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), effective January 1, 2017, Andy Slavitt, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), announced at a news conference on April 27.
April 27, 2016
Medscape
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CMS drops two-midnight rule’s inpatient payment cuts
The CMS will not continue to impose an inpatient payment cut to hospitals under the two-midnight rule following ongoing industry criticism and a legal challenge. It will provide a onetime bump to hospitals to offset the cuts. The agency imposed the cut because it estimated the two midnight policy would increase Medicare spending by approximately $220 million due to an expected increase in inpatient admissions.
April 19, 2016
Modern Healthcare
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Obamacare’s Shift to Value Hits Hospital Admissions
As payment to medical-care providers shifts away from fee-for-service medicine and rewards quality over volume, hospital admissions that rose after millions more Americans gained health coverage may soon begin to slow. The name of the game is outreach to patients and making sure they get the right care, in the right place and at the right time. Private insurers and the Medicare program for seniors don’t reward hospitals financially under reforms woven into the Affordable Care Act and health plan contracts with providers.
April 22, 2016
Forbes
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Hospitalists treat most patients at metro-east hospitals
Belleville resident Marsha Benson is recovering from a shoulder-replacement surgery she had a few weeks ago at Memorial Hospital in Belleville. Benson praised the treatment she received from a hospitalist during her five-day hospital stay. Patients admitted to metro-east hospitals are most often treated by in-house doctors, referred to as hospitalists, rather than their primary care physicians.
April 16, 2016
Belleville News-Democrat
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