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Despite having the most costly health system in the world, the U.S. consistently lags on most dimensions of performance relative to other countries, according to new research from the Commonwealth Fund. Compared with Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the U.K., the U.S. ranks last overall.
The percentage of nonelderly Americans with high financial burden from healthcare spending increased from 16.4 percent in 2004 to 19.1 percent in 2006 while almost 30 percent of the U.S. population either had a high financial burden of health costs or were uninsured from 2001 to 2006, according to an article published online March 26 in Health Affairs.
A gap exists between policy makers' expectations that current commercial EMRs can improve coordination of patient care and clinicians' real-world experiences with EMRs, according to a study conducted by the Center for Studying Health System Change and published online Dec. 22, 2009, in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
Current efforts to collect and publicly report data on discharge planning are unlikely to yield large reductions in unnecessary readmissions, according to study authors in the Dec. 31 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
A report by the New York City-based Commonwealth Fund Commission has found there is a significant difference between the access, quality and cost of healthcare across state lines and that healthcare disparities among states continue to widen.
Physicians can and should play a leading role in achieving healthcare reform, according to a perspective published online May 21 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
As policymakers consider ways to cut health costs as a part of healthcare reform, a new survey of U.S. physician practices finds that physicians are spending, on average, the equivalent of three work weeks annually on administrative tasks required by health plans, according to a study published online May 14 in Health Affairs.
CHICAGO—The U.S. healthcare system needs to quickly implement widespread, systematic reform to improve patient outcomes and reduce massive costs, which are currently approaching 20 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), according to George C. Halvorson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals.
Although the use of healthcare IT has had little effect on patient safety thus far, current programs in practice, such as those implemented in New York state, are shedding light on the necessity for further examination, according to studies published in the March issue of Health Affairs.
A comprehensive set of insurance, payment and system reforms could guarantee affordable health insurance coverage, improve health outcomes and slow the growth of health spending by $3 trillion by the end of the next decade, according to a report released Feb. 19 by the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System.
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“We’re beginning a revolution the way information is collected, managed, used and purposed for patients in the U.S. healthcare system,” said David Blumenthal, MD, chair of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, in opening remarks at an audioconference training session on meaningful use and EHR certification last week.
In Part 1 of our closer look at the final rules for meaningful use and EHR certification standards, CMIO’s Jeff Byers spoke with David Blumenthal, MD, chair of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. In Part 2, CMIOs weigh in with mixed reviews.
The framework for meaningful use is “something that had to be done and has been started intelligently,” John P. Glaser, PhD, vice president and CIO of Partners HealthCare System told CMIO. However, the challenges of becoming meaningful users and optimizing health information exchange will require unprecedented levels of communication within organizations and among healthcare systems, he said.
The contractual obligations in the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on modifications to the HIPAA privacy, security and enforcement rules under the HITECH Act for business associates and downstream entities are game changers, according to Amy S. Leopard, JD, from Walter and Haverfield, during a webinar sponsored by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
Standardizing performance measures, with the help of health IT, will make it possible to collect the right data at the right time to support performance measurement, clinical decision support, clinical research and quality improvement, said Janet M. Corrigan, PhD, president and CEO of the National Quality Forum (NQF) during a webinar hosted by the forum on June 17.