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Patient-centered care that actively employs strategies to engage patients and family members in the delivery of their healthcare is a foundational component to current industry movements. Going forward, healthcare organizations that deploy consistent and effective patient education programs to align with these movements will experience the greatest success with national initiatives such as Medicare Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (HVBP) and the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP).

Advance Healthcare Network »

The introduction of the United States Pharmacopeia Chapter <797> regulation in 2008 sent and continues to send shock waves through hospital pharmacy departments and other sterile drug preparation settings.

Compounding practices that had been ingrained in the pharmaceutical industry for decades were simply turned upside down, and many pharmacies today remain challenged in their pursuit to successfully comply.

Becker's Hospital Review »

Waltham, Mass. – (April 15, 2014) – Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading global provider of information for healthcare professionals and students, announced today that the UpToDate^® global customer support team has received the NorthFace ScoreBoard Award^SM from Omega Management Group Corp. for excellence in customer service and support. This is the third consecutive year that UpToDate has been recognized by Omega for exceeding customer expectations.

Improving care and lowering costs in the medical field are of the utmost importance. "Quality improvement initiatives are essential in every aspect of healthcare delivery because we will never be as good as we can be without additional monitoring and improvement of performance," says Thomas Deas, Jr., MD, MMM, FASGE, of Gastroenterology Associates of North Texas in Fort Worth.

Becker's ASC Review »

Reston, VA – April 8, 2014 – inPractice® Resources, LLC, a subsidiary of Clinical Care Options (CCO), today announced the launch of a first-of-its kind education and reference tool dedicated to the needs of all nurses who provide care for patients with cancer. inPractice® Oncology Nursing is a point-of-care tool that combines high-quality nursing-focused content, oncology-specific clinical decision support, patient education, and professional development resources, including nursing continuing education credits, in a single, easily accessible digital resource.

TAMPA, Fla. – April 8, 2014 – MedHOK, which delivers industry leading actionable healthcare solutions for care, quality and compliance across an integrated cloud-based platform, announced today that it has achieved certification for its Pay for Performance (P4P) measures within 360Measures® for the third consecutive year. Earlier this year, MedHOK earned its fourth consecutive Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS®) certification from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA).

The movement towards a heightened focus on quality, outcomes and cost requires that healthcare organizations make the best use of data that is available to them. Advancement of health IT in the form EHRs has been an important first step in the health IT movement to accurately capture and house patient data. The next step is to extract important patient information in real-time such that it can be used to impact care delivery in a positive way.

Health IT Outcomes »

Waltham, Mass. – (March 26, 2014) – Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading global provider of information for healthcare professionals and students, announced today the release of significant enhancements to its UpToDate^® App for the Android™ mobile platform. The new release delivers an upgraded experience for users worldwide who access the evidence-based clinical decision support resource via the award-winning UpToDate mobile app on their Android smartphones and tablets.

This is the second part of a two-part installment of "HIT Happens," a regular opinion column tackling health IT trends. The first part, where we asked HIMSS attendees to explain what they'd do if given the chance to create the next meaningful use update, can be found here. Part two reveals more responses to the same scenario.

SearchHealth IT »

DENVER, CO (March 19, 2014) — Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading global provider of information for healthcare professionals and students, announced today that BJC HealthCare will leverage the expertise of its Health Language^® Professional Services team to mitigate the financial impact of the health system’s transition to ICD-10.

From a recent flurry of high-profile acquisitions to publication of studies examining the clinical and financial potential, signs point to the maturation of the remote monitoring technology market from “cool gadgets” to “key player.” It is an often-underestimated market segment that has quietly gone about establishing the value of commercially rugged and widely available technologies and their potential to address significant macro-economic problems in aging services.

Health Management Technology »

Often lost in the overarching conversation surrounding the potential negatives of ICD-10 is the very real impact it could have on the selection of physicians and hospitals by health plans, MCOs and shared-risk organizations for participation in provider networks. To succeed, these organizations seek out providers with a strong track record of care that is both high quality and cost-efficient—which is where ICD-10 can hurt or help.

EMR & HIPAA »

Mendota Heights, Minn. – March 6, 2014 – Healthsense, Inc., the fastest growing provider of technology-enabled care solutions for the senior care continuum, announced today that Greg Melsen has joined the company as Chief Financial Officer.

MADISON, Wis. – (March 4, 2014) – Amphion Medical Solutions, a leading provider of advanced transcription and coding solutions and services, announced today the launch of Continuous Coding Quality Monitoring (CCQM), an innovative service to ensure ongoing coding quality and coder proficiency in ICD-10 code sets. CCQM, which takes an “educate first” approach to coding audits, delivers to hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, physician practices and other healthcare organizations the feedback they need for accurate billing, clinical documentation improvement and targeted physician and coder education.

Sometimes one must call back into the past to understand the present and future. When it comes to current challenges and successes with electronic health records (EHRs), the ongoing countrywide implementation mirrors that of another revolutionary wired device.

Journal of AHIMA »