Value of Quality of Life = $129K / yr

From Time.com
Stanford economists have demonstrated that the average value of a year of quality human life is actually closer to about $129,000. To get to that number, Stefanos Zenios and his colleagues at Stanford Graduate School of Business used kidney dialysis as a benchmark. Every year dialysis saves the lives of hundreds of thousands of [...]

CMS sticks to National Provider Identifier deadline

From Modern Healthcare (free subscription required):
The CMS is going forward with implementing a long-delayed federal requirement that electronic claims, including those of Medicare, be submitted using the National Provider Identifier, beginning today. The CMS is claiming both it and the nation are ready as it brushed aside recent requests by healthcare organizations to postpone by [...]

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

We’re working on an RFID project…
From Medgadget:
GE Healthcare, through a collaboration with CenTrak, Inc. of Newton, PA, today announced the availability of a new RFID technology capable of dividing a room or segmenting a bay by creating radio frequency identification (RFID) “virtual walls.” The technology was developed to meet the needs of healthcare providers to [...]

HHS launches ad campaign promoting hospitalcompare.com

From Modern Healthcare (free subscription required):
HHS launched a national print-advertising campaign to promote its Hospital Compare Web site that tracks quality and patient-satisfaction scores for nearly 4,000 U.S. hospitals.
The ads were published in the May 21 issue of 58 daily newspapers—reaching patients covered by about 1,000 hospitals—and emphasize two measures: the percentage of patients who [...]

Virtual ICU Brings Specialty Care to More Hospitals

From the Wall Street Journal Health Blog:
Small and rural hospitals can have a tough time keeping patients. Many will drive an hour or two to the nearest city for all but the most basic — or most urgent — care. And the sickest patients may have to be shipped out anyway, to reach the specialists [...]

MN lawmakers OK sweeping healthcare bill

From Modern Healthcare (free subscription required):
Minnesota’s Legislature approved a sweeping healthcare bill that would require electronic prescribing, create new rules to boost quality and price transparency and tie payment to care coordination and performance.
Pharmacists, physicians and others who prescribe or dispense medication in Minnesota would have to do so electronically as of 2011 under the [...]

Doctors Flock to Texas After Tort Reform

From the Wall Street Journal Health Blog:
In the last three years, 7,000 doctors have moved to Texas. So many doctors want to practice there that the state has had trouble keeping up with the requests for licenses. How come the flood? A clampdown on damages in malpractice suits has made Texas a very attractive place [...]

CA Proposal would ban some charges to ER patients

From Sign On San Diego:
Doctors and hospital officials will square off with health insurers Monday in San Diego over a state plan to ban medical providers from billing emergency room patients for charges not covered by insurance companies.
The proposal, by the Department of Managed Health Care, is the agency’s third attempt in two years to [...]

Doctors Start to Say ‘I’m Sorry’ Long Before ‘See You in Court’

From the NY Times:
For decades, malpractice lawyers and insurers have counseled doctors and hospitals to “deny and defend.” Many still warn clients that any admission of fault, or even expression of regret, is likely to invite litigation and imperil careers.
But with providers choking on malpractice costs and consumers demanding action against medical errors, a handful [...]

Hospital Night Shift Needs Attention

From the Wall Street Journal Health Blog:
After sundown the doctors get scarcer, the nurses fewer and the waits for just about everything get longer. There aren’t many bosses or seasoned pros around when things get sticky.
The result is a “stark discrepancy in quality between daytime and nighttime inpatient services,” David Shulkin, president and CEO of [...]