The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced more than 270 grants totaling $55.5 million in funding to address healthcare workforce needs in nursing, public health, behavioral health, workforce development, and dentistry. The grants are managed by HHS’ Health Resources and...
After holding steady at 19% from 2007 to 2011, the all-cause 30-day hospital readmission rate among Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries fell to 18.5% in 2012, and has continued to fall in 2013, according to an entry posted on The CMS Blog website last week. Preliminary claims data shows...
The American Telemedicine Association (ATA) praised CMS changes that would expand coverage of telehealth services for Medicare beneficiaries starting next month. “The proposed new rules, while incremental, represent another step toward integrating the use of telecommunications technology into...
When emergency rooms in rural areas see very sick or badly injured children, bringing in a pediatric critical care specialist by videoconference to help with treatment could prevent errors, a new study suggests. Researchers found rural ER physicians made medication errors—such as giving the...
With the rise in laparoscopic surgery for many common surgical procedures, some in healthcare are concerned that surgeons may eventually lose proficiency for open procedures, writes Sekptical Scalpel in a recent guest blog for Physicians Weekly. Other open operations have been done...
The draft of the next National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) Guide is available for comment through early next year. Some things have changed since the last edition was printed—for starters, the Healthcare Integrity and Protection Data Bank has been merged into the NPDB, although this merger...