35 Illinois hospitals receive A grades in latest Leapfrog rankings
Thirty-five of 111 Illinois hospitals studied by the Leapfrog Group received top marks on patient safety, according to a report released Thursday.
MedPAC Members Pan Rural Hospitals’ ‘Cost-Plus’ Billing System for Medicare Patients
Rural hospitals’ ability to bill fee-for-service Medicare patients and the uninsured on a “cost-plus” basis — essentially setting their charges at whatever level they think is appropriate — is untenable and must be changed, several members of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) said Thursday. “Charges are made up, inflated in ways that are unbelievable,” […]
Opinion | ‘They Don’t Play by Our Rules’: What We Heard This Week
“Hospitals are eating up practices all around us … and guess what? They don’t play by our rules.” — Mohammad Ibrahim, DO, of the Michigan State Medical Society, calling for the American Medical Association to adopt a policy to reform the Stark law. “After 3 years, we still don’t understand why some people experience symptoms […]
Hospitals Have Many Opportunities to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Experts Say
Hospitals aiming to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions can begin by taking a few simple steps, experts said at an online event sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center. “The U.S. health system accounts for 8.5% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, a larger percentage than any other country in the world,” Joseph Betancourt, MD, MPH, […]
To Get More New Antimicrobial Drugs, Fix the Broken Market, Experts Say
Fixing the broken market for innovative antimicrobial drugs should start with the hospitals, said Christine Ann Miller, MBA, at the Future of Health Summit sponsored by the Milken Institute on Tuesday. Because hospitals under the diagnosis-related group (DRG) system get paid a lump sum for treating a patient with a particular disease or condition, “hospitals […]
CDC Issues Sepsis Care Guidance for Hospitals
The CDC issued new guidance to hospitals Thursday for managing sepsis and called on hospitals to do better at treating it. “Every hospital, regardless of size, location, and resources can strengthen the quality of care delivered to these patients and ensure their survival,” CDC Director Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH, said at a press conference. “That’s […]
Study Questions Relationship Between Hospital Competition and Surgical Quality
Outcomes after high-risk elective surgery did not have a clear relationship with a hospital’s local competitive landscape, a study using nationally representative Medicare data suggested. Hospitals in the highest-competition U.S. markets had mixed postsurgical outcomes compared with those in the lowest-competition markets: risk-adjusted 30-day mortality was lower for pancreatectomy (OR 0.93, 95% CI 0.91-0.95), rectal […]
NC Nonprofit Hospital Execs Made Over $1.75B Since 2010, Report Shows
Over the past decade, CEOs and other top executives at North Carolina’s nonprofit hospitals raked in massive amounts of money as worker wages were stymied, medical debt mounted, and a lack of transparency persisted, according to a new report. Nonprofit hospitals in the state paid their top executives more than $1.75 billion from 2010 to […]
Hospitals Slammed With ‘Viral Jambalaya’ Of Flu, RSV, COVID-19
As Americans head into the holiday season, a rapidly intensifying flu season is straining hospitals already overburdened with patients sick from other respiratory infections. More than half the states have high or very high levels of flu, unusually high for this early in the season, the government reported Friday. Those 27 states are mostly in […]
Cutting Unneeded Urine Cultures a Good First Step to Less Antibiotic Use
WASHINGTON — Michigan hospitals were able to cut down on unnecessary treatment of asymptomatic bacteriuria (ASB) thanks to better diagnostic stewardship, according to a study. The percentage of patients with a positive urine culture who had ASB fell from 34.1% in the year 2017 to 22.5% in 2020 in a consortium of 46 hospitals. That […]