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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Editor's Note Patients admitted to the hospital for procedures that would not be expected to require admission (ie, low-value procedures) are being harmed, consuming additional hospital resources, and delaying care for patients for whom the services would be appropriate, this Australian study finds. In this analysis of 9,330 episodes of…

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Editor's Note The US government claimed that digitization of healthcare records would improve the quality and value of healthcare; however, 10 years after legislation fast-tracked the move to electronic healthcare records (EHRs), even the architects of the effort agree that the $36 billion investment has not delivered as expected, the…

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Editor's Note The Cleveland Clinic has launched a new Center for Clinical Artificial Intelligence, which will focus on applying machine learning to healthcare diagnostics, predictive analytics, and treatment planning, the March 13 Health IT Analytics reports. As part of the Cleveland Clinic Enterprise Analytics division, the new center will analyze…

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San Diego in January is a place where many people would rather be, and the 475 healthcare business and industry leaders who gathered there for the 2019 OR Business Management Conference (ORBMC) enjoyed the mild climate along with high-quality presentations and fun networking events. Conference attendance rises each year, yet…

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