30 Years Solo: Advice From a Doctor on Staying Independent
My practice—despite tightening reimbursement prices and wild economic times—is doing quite well. Here are some tips I’ve learned over the years, all of which are founded on a simple philosophy: Caring for patients and providing good service is the primary goal. Happy, healthy patients are the financial lifeblood of any independent provider.
Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute Supports 26 New Studies
The $258 million in funding was announced by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). The institute also announced an additional $3.9 million for two projects to promote wider and faster clinical adoption of useful findings from completed PCORI clinical effectiveness research (CER) studies.
Leapfrog Makes Recommendations to Reduce Diagnostic Errors at Hospitals
Leapfrog, which is a nonprofit organization founded in 2000 to promote patient safety, identified 300 potential practices that hospitals could adopt to reduce diagnostic errors. The potential practices were pared down to a list of 29 recommended practices in two categories— Organizational Leadership & Systems and the Diagnostic Process. There are 16 recommendations in the Organizational Leadership & Systems category and 13 recommendations in the Diagnostic Process category.
Using Technology to Improve Observation Rates and Drive Appropriate Admissions
The suburban Philadelphia healthcare network, centered around an independent 270-bed hospital, is using predictive analytics technology from XSOLIS to improve medical utilization management. In the first six months of use, officials say they’ve improved observation rates by 20% and observation to inpatient conversion rates by 37%. And three years later, the initial return on investment of 4.6x has now improved to 7.3x.
AMA Survey Cites Patient Concerns With Data Security
Almost 75% of those surveyed are concerned about protecting the privacy of personal health data. Only 20% of patients said they know how many companies and individuals have access to their data. The recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling over abortion rights is heightening these concerns, the AMA says, since a lack of data privacy may put patients and physicians in legal jeopardy where states are restricting reproductive health services.
Establish Monkeypox Infection Control Team, Monitor Community Outbreaks
The World Health Organization declared the contagion a global health emergency July 23 and HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said the declaration “is a call to action for the global health community,” and that his agency and others will be accelerating plans to make “to make vaccines, testing, and treatments available to people in need.”
CMS Revises Methodology for Calculating Staffing Star Rating
These measures, which have been posted on the CMS website for more than a decade, are used to calculate each nursing home’s star rating for the staffing section of the Nursing Home Five-Star Quality Rating System.
Researchers Find Decreased In-Hospital Adverse Events from 2010 to 2019
The new research article, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is based on data collected from more than 244,000 adult patients hospitalized in 3,256 hospitals from 2010 to 2019.
PSQH: The Podcast Episode 58 – Using Technology to Bridge the Behavioral Health Gap for Children
On episode 58 of PSQH: The Podcast, Dr. Anthony Sossong, chief medical director of behavioral health at Amwell, talks about how technology can help improve behavioral health services for children.
CDC Updates Enhanced Barrier Precautions for Nursing Home Residents
Nursing home residents are at increased risk of developing infection with multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs), so the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated Enhanced Barrier Precautions (EBPs) for nursing facilities to protect residents.