According to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, "the most remarkable feature of 21st century medicine is that we hold it together with 19th century paperwork." At a Washington summit on information technology, Thompson announced new standards for electronic exchange of clinical health information that he says will move healthcare information technology into the 21st century more quickly.
A new chartbook on healthcare of children and adolescents from the Commonwealth Fund looks to change the way the healthcare community views the quality of this care.
In recent years, many hospitals and healthcare organizations have begun to focus on palliative care for their patients with serious chronic, debilitating, or life-threatening illnesses. Today, about 950 hospitals provide palliative care to their patients-up from just a handful only 5 years ago. And the number is expected to quickly rise. But are these organizations' palliative care programs providing all the support and services they can to maintain quality care for their patients?
As winter moved into spring this year, the debate ratcheted up in the halls of Congress, in hospital corridors, in payer meetings, and in executive boardrooms on the question of what is quality healthcare--and how can it best be monitored and delivered? And, can it be viewed as the panacea to escalating healthcare costs? The answers, it seems, depend on to whom you are talking. Some say more measures are needed. Some say the measures available are confusing. And some say reengineering of the system is what's needed.
Registries for chronic disease management have been around for years. But as disease registries are adopted more widely, their definitions and functions are evolving--accompanied by a better understanding of how to manage a population of patients with chronic diseases--according to a new report.
Low health literacy is "a very underappreciated problem," Institute of Medicine (IOM) president Harvey Fineberg, MD, said at a Washington, DC, media briefing that introduced reports on health literacy from the IOM and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
The issue of quality of care dominated the new report on Medicare payment policy of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, submitted to Congress last month. The report notes that Medicare beneficiaries--mirroring trends in care for the rest of the population--face "significant gaps between care known to be effective and the care delivered"--especially where patient safety issues are concerned.
To improve patient care while containing costs, some hospitals and long-term-care facilities are redesigning their workplace environments--physically and/or procedurally--to attract nurses and their colleagues and make them places where they want to stay and work.
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