Physicians should recieve full, refundable tax credits to help them buy and use health information technology, according to the American Medical Association's House of Delegates. Of the physicians who responded to an AMA survey, 79 percent backed the idea of a tax credit to defray EMR costs.
According to a study conducted at the Columbia University Medical Center, CT scans could be responsible for as much as 2 percent of all cancers in the United States in the next 20 to 30 years due the radiation exposure. The news was released amidst the Radiological Society of North America's annual meeting, and the RSNA responded by saying that while there is risk with CT, the potential benefits far outweigh them.
An Internet-based program called Telehealth can monitors patients with such chronic illnesses as congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or diabetes. The program warns when certain individually determined thresholds are passed, such as blood pressure or blood sugar, and makes the daily information available to the patient's doctor and nurses.
Rural hospitals throughout Illinois be connected to a high-speed fiber-optic network aimed at improving healthcare by linking staff to the expertise and resources of much larger hospitals in the Chicago area.
A judge's instructions to a jury in a federal corruption case were too broad and allowed two former hospital executives to be convicted of conduct that was not illegal, according to an argument in appeals court. Robert Urciuoli, former president and chief executive of Roger Williams Medical Center in Providence, RI, was convicted last year, along with the former vice president, of paying a state senator to advance the hospital's agenda at the Statehouse.
A new survey shows that when it comes to dealing with colleagues' mistakes or incompetence, physicians oftentimes abandon the high standards they espouse. According to the study, 45 percent of those surveyed they did not always report an incompetent or impaired colleague to the appropriate authorities, even though 96 percent said doctors should turn in such people.
The Massachusetts Association of Health Plans proposed a wide-ranging set of recommendations intended to help control rising premiums and provide consumers with more information about why rates go up. The package includes ideas that seem intended to place the blame for rising healthcare costs on doctors and hospitals.
Atlanta-based Grady Health System's national accreditation at risk after a five-day Joint Commission inspection identified "numerous requirements for improvement." Hospital officials gave no details about the kinds of shortcomings found by The Joint Commission inspectors.
Community Health Systems Inc. said it has sold Barberton Citizens Hospital in Barberton, OH, to its joint venture partner Buyer Summa Health System. Buyer Summa Health System previously owned a 3.25 percent stake in the 311-bed acute care hospital.
Boston Medical Center sent a letter recently to 2,600 patients that wrongly implied they could get care at BMC only if they signed up for the hospital's insurance plan, called HealthNet. The content of the letter and the direct approach to patients enrolled with other insurers violated HealthNet's state contract, and the state will penalize the insurer by reducing the number of patients it covers.
