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The latest stories from AHA Today.
Health care quality continued to improve overall through 2015, with notable gains in patient safety and person-centered care, according to the latest annual report on health care quality and disparities from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. About 80% of the person-centered measures,…
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today unveiled its Hospice Compare website, which initially shows how more than 3,800 hospices perform on seven quality measures related to patient treatment preferences, managing pain and treating symptoms. CMS plans to add patient experience of…
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently agreed to allow the New Hampshire Health Protection Program to continue unchanged through 2018, but said the state will need to change how it finances the non-federal share of the program in the future. One of 31 expansion states, New…
The adolescent death rate from drug overdoses increased to 3.7 per 100,000 in 2015 after gradually declining to 3.1 from a high of 4.2 per 100,000 in 2007, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overdose death rates for girls aged 15-19 nearly doubled between…
Limited evidence suggests that cannabis may alleviate neuropathic pain in some patients, but insufficient evidence exists for other types of chronic pain, according to a study reported yesterday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The study reviewed the benefits of plant-based cannabis preparations…
Terry Horton, M.D., saw an opportunity for early intervention.
Patients showed up in Christiana Care Health System’s emergency department (ED) with illnesses caused by substance use disorders. The ED team knew they needed help for more than the strokes, broken limbs, high blood pressure and…
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today issued a proposed rule that would cancel the cardiac and surgical hip and femur fracture treatment mandatory bundling payment programs, known as the episode payment models. It also would cancel the cardiac rehabilitation incentive payment model…
If federal payments to reduce out-of-pocket costs for low-income individuals purchasing coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplaces were to end, premiums for silver-level plans would be 20% higher in 2018 and 25% higher in 2026, the Congressional Budget Office estimated today. Individuals…
Acute-care hospitals will be required to report on at least four, rather than six, self-selected electronic clinical quality measures for ORYX performance measure reporting in calendar year 2017, the Joint Commission announced today.
Antidepressant use by Americans aged 12 and older increased 65% between 1999 and 2014, according to a report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 13% of Americans reported taking antidepressants in the previous month when surveyed between 2011 and 2014, up from 7…