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Editorial-Small hospital's nursing peer review helps staff embrace culture of safety
Hospitals in Pursuit of Excellence, a key component of the AHA's health reform strategies, encourages and promotes hospital-led improvements in care that are based on best practices and can be replicated across the field. On a recurring basis, AHA News spo...
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Editorial-By setting too high a bar, EHR rules would hinder IT adoption, says AHA
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposes too high a bar for achieving 'meaningful use' of electronic health records (EHR) and an unrealistically short transition time that will "severely limit hospitals' ability to access...
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Editorial-Burgess: CMS needs to 'rethink' its 'meaningful use' regulations
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) needs to "rethink" its definition of a "meaningful user" of electronic health records (EHR) and come up with a plan that gives hospitals "a good deal more flexibility" and time to qualify for the incen...
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Editorial-AHA: Unrealistic IT deadlines will do more harm than help
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on Dec. 30 released a proposed rule defining "meaningful use" of electronic health records (EHR). How CMS defines a meaningful user will determine which hospitals and physician qualify for ...
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Courage and Compassion in the Future of Health Care
Joe Flower That was quite a year, that 2009. Wasn't it? Across the industry, as we move into spring 2010, the strongest desire I hear is to get back to some kind of "business as usual," to breathe a big sigh of relief that we are past...
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The Benefits of Conflict
Cary Gutbezahl, M.D. You have to avoid conflict within your organization to get things done. That's what most of us are used to. We have learned to fight for issues that are important to us, but avoid getting involved in issues that aren't. And...
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After Harrowing Diagnosis, She's Right There With Them
As the administrative director of the Breast Center at Johns Hopkins, Lillie Shockney traveled to South Korea for the Global Breast Cancer Conference in October and in January spoke at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland about strategies to improve tre...
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Physician-Hospital Collaborations in Brief
Accountable care organizations, such as the Baylor Health Care model, have been touted in the federal health care reform debate as one way to encourage physicians and hospitals to work together. It requires doctors, hospitals, therapists and home care work...
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Does It All Add Up?
Beginning in 2010 for tax year 2009, organizations that operate nonprofit hospitals will be required to report community benefit activities and expenditures on a new Schedule H Form 990, the "Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax." Many concerns ha...
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Reducing Costs
Multiple factors are rapidly converging to push the current model for health care delivery to the brink. Demographic shifts, an increasing number of uninsured patients and escalating treatment costs are challenging the financial viability of many health ca...
