News

It was a field day last week for health wonks in Washington. The CMS issued two major rules—one final, one proposed—that will shape how nearly half the nation's healthcare tab gets spent over the next decade.

Modern Healthcare »

For state Medicaid and CHIP programs, successful implementation of the new rule is dependent on their ability to collect, store, analyze, and report on operational, financial, and program data from managed care plans.

Managed Healthcare Executive »

Cognosante today announced the promotion of Davis Foster to President of its Health Data and Communications (HDC) Business Unit, where she will continue guiding the company’s work with government healthcare agencies.

It’s important to trust your gut, especially during tough times. Just ask Cognosante Founder and Chief Executive Officer Y. Michele Kang, who launched the Virginia-based business during the 2008 financial crisis.

Forbes »

Spaulding Decon, a nationally established leader in crime-scene cleanup, hoarding cleanup and meth-lab decontamination, today announced the grand opening of its first franchise, located in Wichita, Kan. The company will provide decontamination services to residents of Kansas and neighboring states, including Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Franchisee and Kansas native Justin Kufahl will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the announcement on April 15 at 11 a.m. at the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce, 350 West Douglas Avenue, Wichita, Kan., 67202.

The Health division of Wolters Kluwer, a leading global provider of information and point of care solutions for the healthcare industry, announced today that The Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) has published a study by researchers Sharad Manaktala, MD, PhD, et al. detailing a significant reduction in sepsis mortality using automated surveillance and real-time analysis. The study examines how clinicians at Alabama’s Huntsville Hospital decreased sepsis-related deaths by 53% during a 10-month period using a combination of clinical change management and electronic alerting from POC Advisor™, a highly-accurate clinical decision support (CDS) software. The system’s alerts detect sepsis early and guide clinicians to deliver the appropriate treatment, resulting in a breakthrough in alert accuracy, reaching 95% sensitivity and 82% specificity during the study period.

Augusta native Justin Kufahl has had a peripatetic life in recent years.

“Up until now I kind of did things that were interesting to me or sounded like fun or were exotic,” he says, explaining that he’s moved every six months to year and a half with various adventures.

The Wichita Eagle »

When Laura Spaulding busted meth labs or walked through crime scenes as a police officer with the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department, she sometimes thought about what happened after the squad cars pulled away. Who would clean up the fingerprint dust and the blood? What would happen to the property?

Entrepreneur »

Marketing is tough for businesses that clean up crime scenes or the homes of hoarders. How can you put a positive spin on it and get customers to trust and hire you? The founder of one small business says she had to focus on her marketing.

MSNBC »

As the healthcare industry grapples with the daunting challenges of achieving interoperability, stakeholders are focused on solving the fundamental problem of ensuring that all parties “speak the same language,” through the use of common data models and vocabularies. Semantic interoperability, the ability of two or more healthcare systems to share clinical information and use it meaningfully, is a critical requirement for enabling population health management and the rapidly approaching transition from fee-for-service to value-based care models.

Health Data Management »