|
Wednesday, March 17 2010
The American College of Radiology (ACR), American Board of Radiology, Radiological Society of North America and the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine have submitted joint comments to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regarding proposed implementation of the Medicare/Medicaid program on meaningful use of certified EHR technology.
Tuesday, March 16 2010
Early findings suggest a radiation therapy that involves numerous highly-focused and potent radiation beams provides targeted tumor control in nearly all patients, reduces treatment-related illness and may ultimately improve survival for patients with inoperable non-small cell lung cancer, according to a study in the March 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Monday, March 15 2010
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Healthcare organization Rhode Island Quality Institute was recognized as a national IT and HIE leader yesterday by David Blumenthal, MD, national coordinator for health IT, during a visit to Coastal Medical in East Providence, R.I.
Saturday, March 13 2010
Written by Justine Cadet
ATLANTA--In order for providers to eliminate top revenue drains, they must adopt better coding techniques and integrate the coding team into the hospital setting, said Karna Morrow, from Coding Strategies in Atlanta, during her presentation at the American College of Cardiovascular Administrators (ACCA) conference on March 12. Slides»
Thursday, March 11 2010
Less than 15 years ago, a radiology group’s professional service agreement with a hospital was, according to Lawrence Muroff, MD, equivalent to “a relatively hassle-free tenure.” But Muroff, writing in the March issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology (JACR), says that things have changed. Radiology practices now have PSAs that are “more restrictive, more controlling and more demanding. . .”
Wednesday, March 10 2010
Written by Justine Cadet
Slightly more than one-third of patients without known disease, who underwent elective cardiac catheterization, had obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) out of nearly 400,000 patients at 663 sites, based on study findings published March 11 in the New England Journal of Medicine. However, in an interview, Timothy D. Henry, MD, from Minneapolis Heart Institute, said that when reviewing the study’s data in its entirety, it appears that most practices are performing these procedures properly.
Tuesday, March 09 2010
Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has sent a letter to several insurance company CEOs asking them to publicly justify proposed health insurance premium increases.
Monday, March 08 2010
An Arkansas widower has filed a class action lawsuit against Lester E. Cox Medical Centers in the case involving the overradiation of 76 patients with brain cancer at CoxHealth of Springfield, Mo.
Friday, March 05 2010
Amicas has agreed to be acquired by Merge Healthcare in cash for a total of $248 million, which ends a struggle between Merge and Thoma Bravo over the medical imaging vendor.
Thursday, March 04 2010
The molecular imaging market is currently valued at approximately $5 billion, with half of the revenue being generated in North America alone, according to a market research report from Espicom Business Intelligence.
|
Tuesday, March 16 2010
ATLANTA—A novel F18-labeled PET perfusion imaging agent has shown higher specificity for detecting right coronary artery disease compared to SPECT imaging with technetium-99m. In addition, the PET agent detected more severe and extensive stress perfusion abnormalities in the territories of diseased coronary arteries, according to an oral presentation Tuesday at the American College of Cardiology Meeting (ACC).
Tuesday, March 16 2010
IMIX, a provider of digital radiography systems, and radiology system provider Arcoma, have agreed to merge.
Monday, March 15 2010
Today is the last day for public comment to be accepted on two regulations that attempt to lay a foundation for meaningful use of certified EHR technology.
Thursday, March 11 2010
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Health Canada have approved the use of the Maria Research Reactor in Poland as a site to irradiate highly-enriched uranium targets for molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) production, according to Covidien.
Thursday, March 11 2010
The U.S. Senate yesterday passed legislation that will delay the date of a 21.2 percent Medicare payment cut to physicians until Oct.1.
Wednesday, March 10 2010
Four chief information officers, who are also members of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), testified before the Implementation Workgroup federal panel this week on the challenges they foresee in implementing EHRs, under the current definition outlined in the interim final rule of meaningful use.
Monday, March 08 2010
As of March 1, all access to electronic Department of Defense (DoD) records through the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) computerized patient record system (CPRS) remote data view (RDV) and VistAWeb was disabled due to the potential for incorrect or incomplete display of DoD patient medical records when using VA’s CPRS RDV or VistAWeb functions, according to a patient safety alert published by the VA Central Office issued March 3.
Monday, March 08 2010
While non-farm payroll employment saw little change in February (36,000 jobs lost and an unemployment rate holding at 9.7 percent), the U.S. healthcare industry continues to be one of the few bright spots in what continues to be a pretty dismal employment picture.
Friday, March 05 2010
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), in a Feb. 26 final decision memorandum, proposed that “the available evidence is sufficient to determine that NaF-18 PET imaging to identify bone metastasis of cancer to inform the initial antitumor treatment strategy or to guide subsequent antitumor treatment strategy after the completion of initial treatment, is reasonable and necessary” through coverage with evidence development.
Friday, March 05 2010
Performing a high-resolution CT on non-smoking women age 24 to 53 with a collapsed lung can be a cost-effective screening for lymphangioleiomyomatosis, according to a study published online Feb. 18 in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
|
RSS 
The use of health IT to reduce rehospitalizations will be welcome but also disruptive, said Stephen Jencks, an independent consultant in healthcare safety during a Feb. 24 webinar on the potential use of health IT to mitigate rehospitalizations, sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
During the Health IT Standards Committee meeting on Feb. 24 in Washington, D.C., the Clinical Operations Workgroup sought to gather comments on proposed recommendations on implementation specifications for content exchange, vocabulary and code set standards for the Interim Final Rule of meaningful use.
In 2006, the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), a branch of the FDA, began examining the number of medical device reports they received. Over the past two years, the number of submitted reports has increased, sparking a demand for the CDRH to make a move to electronic reporting.
A new hospital breaking ground usually isn’t breaking news. But the vision of patient care at one new facility, tentatively named Palomar Medical Center West (PMC West), is currently illegal under California state law.