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...
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...
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...
Communication—whether among physicians, between physicians and nurses, or between physicians and patients—remains central to the ongoing discussion of quality improvement in hospitals and how to build physician ownership and involvement.
A U.S. District Court judge in Newark, N.J., this week sentenced a former physician to six and a half years in federal prison for fraudulently diagnosing patients with heart ailments and ordering them to undergo unnecessary tests. The physician reportedly defrauded Medicare, Medicaid and private...
