Editor's Note The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on May 9 released a National Health Interview Survey that found an estimated 9.4% of US residents (30.4 million people) lacked health insurance in 2018, which is not significantly different than in 2017, but it is 18.2 million fewer than…

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Editor's Note Reducing low-value testing before cataract surgery was associated with cost savings for financially capitated healthcare systems, but it was also associated with losses for fee-for-service healthcare systems, which could be a barrier to eliminating low-value care, this study finds. Of 1,054 patients (469 intervention, 585 controls) included in…

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Editor's Note Though emergency department (ED) visits and hospital discharges by uninsured patients decreased after implementation of the Affordable Care Act, 1 in 10 ED visits and 1 in 20 hospital discharges were still made by uninsured patients from 2014 to 2016, this study finds.   There were 1.4 million…

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Editor's Note US hospitals added 8,300 jobs in April to a seasonally adjusted 5,229,200, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on May 3. That’s up 105,700 more employees than a year ago. Overall, healthcare employment has increased 403,500 in the past year. The overall unemployment rate fell to 3.6% in April…

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Editor's Note Patients with diabetes who had low blood glucose values during the last day of hospitalization had higher rates of 30-day readmission and post discharge mortality, this study finds. Examining 843,978 admissions to the VA health care system over a 14-year period, researchers found that  patients with diabetes who…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recent changes to its Hospital Readmission Reduction Program resulted in a drop in readmission fines for academic, safety-net, and rural hospitals, this study finds. This analysis of 3,049 hospitals found that because of policy changes that now separate hospitals into…

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High labor costs, surgeon dissatisfaction, high staff turnover, and low staff competency are problems that dog many OR leaders at some point in their careers. When managers at the Stanford University Medical Center Main OR in Stanford, California, found themselves facing all of these problems at once, they knew something…

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Editor's Note The Center’s for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is legally responsible for setting and updating the work element of its relative value units (RVUs), which form the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule used to determine physician payments. In practice, however, updating what is known as the “work RVU” is…

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Editor's Note US hospitals added 13,600 jobs in March to a seasonally adjusted 5,223,400, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on April 5. That’s up 108,500 more employees than a year ago. Overall, healthcare employment has increased 397,500 in the past year. The overall unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.8%.

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Editor's Note The ECRI Institute on April 1 announced the 11 US healthcare organizations that received its 2019 Healthcare Supply Chain Achievement Award. The winners demonstrated excellence in overall spend management in their supply chain processes, and include: Albany Medical Center, Albany, NY Cambridge Health Alliance, Cambridge, MA Cooperative Services…

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