healthcare costs

See the following -

Axial Aims To Give Power To The Patients

John Andrews | Healthcare IT News | January 21, 2014

There have been many ideas proposed as solutions for reducing costly hospital readmissions, but one concept that hasn’t gotten much attention over the years is patient empowerment – the practice of letting people take control of their healthcare. Read More »

Better Care Not Always Better Business

Erin McCann | Healthcare IT News | May 21, 2013

Healthcare not incentivized to eliminate profitable procedures that may not benefit patients Read More »

Better IT, More Efficiencies Needed At Joint VA/DOD Health Centers, GAO Finds

Anthony Brino | Government Health IT | October 1, 2012

There are several barriers to healthcare collaboration between the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense, especially in the area of health IT, a Government Accountability Office report has found (PDF). Read More »

Better Quality Measures Mean Better Quality Care

Alicia Caramenico | FierceHealthcare | June 27, 2013

Healthcare has a long way to go to close quality and cost gaps, a task that requires meaningful, well-understood quality measures, former Medicare Administrator Mark McClellan, M.D., told the Senate Finance Committee yesterday at a hearing on healthcare quality. Read More »

Big Sugar's Sweet Little Lies

Gary Taubes and Cristin Kearns Couzens | Mother Jones | November 1, 2012

How the industry kept scientists from asking: Does sugar kill? Read More »

Blood Infections Play Role In Up To Half Of Hospital Deaths: Study

Robert Preidt | MedlinePlus | May 19, 2014

Bloodstream infections -- also known as sepsis -- occur in about 10 percent of hospital patients in the United States but contribute to as many as half of all hospital deaths, a new study says. Read More »

Brand-Name Drugs Pushing Up US Medicare Costs: Survey

Lynne Taylor | PharmaTimes | June 12, 2013

People with diabetes who are enrolled in the US federal Medicare health programme are two to three times more likely to use "expensive" brand-name drugs than diabetes patients who are treated within the Veterans Administration (VA) Healthcare System, new research shows. Read More »

Breaking The Chain

Jaimy Lee | ModernHealthcare.com | August 17, 2013

Patients with a new cardiac pacemaker have an advantage over patients who have received standard pacemakers: they can undergo MRI scans as a part of their care without the risk of adverse events. Read More »

Buy EHR vs Build EHR

John Lynn | Hospital EMR & EHR | October 14, 2013

I’ve long had an interest in the topic of when hospitals chose to buy their EHR software versus build their EHR software. In fact, we’ve written multiple times on the subject including Anne Zieger’s piece on “Some Hospitals Still Choosing To Build Own EMR“. Read More »

Calling Obesity A Disease: Is This About Health Or Is It About Money?

William Anderson | Huffington Post | July 9, 2013

In case you've been on vacation the last month and incommunicado, the New York Times on June 18 reported that the AMA has officially declared that obesity is a disease, not just a physical condition. Since then, the media, the Internet and the medical community have erupted in a frenzy of stories and opinions. Read More »

Canadians Pay Taxes For Universal Health Care, And Now They’re Richer Than Us

Philip Caper | Bangor Daily News | June 20, 2013

Canada’s tax-financed health care system covers everybody, gets better results, costs about two-thirds of what ours does and is far more popular than ours with both their public and their politicians. There is no opposition to it in the Canadian Parliament. What’s not to like about that? Oh yes, and the average Canadian is now wealthier than the average American. Their far more efficient and effective tax-based health care system is part of the reason.

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Carl Reynolds On [Britain's NHS] Procurement Woes

Carl Reynolds | eHealth Insider | October 19, 2012

Junior doctor and open source enthusiast Carl Reynolds compares buying a used car with an NHS IT system, and concludes that the NHS needs to try harder to get a good deal. Read More »

Cash-Only Doctors Abandon The Insurance System

Steve Hargreaves | CNN | June 11, 2013

Fed up with declining payments and rising red tape, a small but growing number of doctors is opting out of the insurance system completely. They're expecting patients to pony up with cash. Read More »

CEOs/HR Execs Facing Personal Liability: Dereliction of Fiduciary Duties Triggering Labor Dept Investigations

Dave Chase | LinkedIn | September 30, 2016

The first shots across the bow have been fired highlighting how benefits leaders need to pay as close attention to health benefits as they have been paying to retirement plans. The most recent lawsuits name the HR leaders in the companies involved (GAP and CB&I) as defendants since they are listed as the plan administrator (sometimes CFOs are the plan administrators). It’s clear that there is going to be the increased scrutiny for health benefits that has been commonplace for retirement benefits. For example, you can Google “ERISA class action” to find the many cases surrounding retirement benefits going after plan administrators for failing in their fiduciary duties. Similar cases in healthcare could have as far-reaching implications as Obamacare in driving employers to health benefits that deliver value...

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Cerner, McKesson, Allscripts, Athenahealth, Greenway And RelayHealth Announce Ground Breaking Alliance To Enable Integrated Health Care

Press Release | CommonWell Health Alliance, Cerner, McKesson, Allscripts, athenahealth, RelayHealth, Greenway Medical Technologies | March 4, 2013

Top health care information technology (HIT) companies Cerner, McKesson, Allscripts, athenahealth, Greenway Medical Technologies® and RelayHealth announced today the launch of the CommonWell Health Alliance™, planned to be an independent not-for-profit organization that will support universal, trusted access to health care data through seamless interoperability. Read More »