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This week's industry news

1.) CMS Proposes Adjusting Meaningful Use Timeline

CMS has proposed delaying the start of Stage 3 of the meaningful use program for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs, while the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has proposed adjustments to its certification process, according to a December 6th post on the HHS blog site Health IT Buzz.

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2.) A Best Practice Roadmap to ICD-10 Readiness

This resource documents the process BCBSM has established to resolve discrepancies between ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes, a milestone that has allowed the payor to complete its version of the General Equivalence Mappings (GEMs) - referred to as the Blue GEM Encyclopedia.


Learn more about this resource.

3.) 3 Reasons Hospitals are Reluctant to Implement ACOs

Financial concerns, quality issues and the interoperability of electronic health records (EHRs) are among the reasons nearly half of the hospital executives recently surveyed by Purdue Healthcare Advisors have no plans to implement an accountable care organization (ACO) in the near future.

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4.) Guide to Accountable Care Organizations

This resource lays the groundwork for an ACO program, delivering a comprehensive set of 2012 ACO benchmarks from 200 companies; a framework for clinical integration, a key ACO prerequisite that puts participating providers on the same performance and payment page; and guidelines for physician-led ACOs.

Learn more about this resource.

5.) Healthcare Business White Paper: Case Management in 2013 - Achieving Results with Cardiovascular Disease; Long-Term Care Next Frontier for Embedded Case Managers

New market research from the Healthcare Intelligence Network found that 57 percent of healthcare companies will add case managers in the coming year (up from 27 percent in 2012). Download this HINtelligence report to learn more about case management trends for 2013 as told by 118 healthcare companies in HIN's fourth annual Healthcare Case Management Survey. This HINtelligence Report provides data highlights on case management program components, results, and ROI; as well as improvements and innovations from embedded case management.

Download this complimentary white paper.

6.) Setting Price Caps on Surgeries Doesn't Always Generate Healthcare Savings: Study

Despite successfully setting price caps on hip and knee replacements in California, reference pricing's potential to generate healthcare savings hasn't materialized, according to a qualitative study by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) for the nonpartisan, nonprofit National Institute for Health Care Reform (NIHCR).

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7.) New Chart: Top Incentives for HRA Completion

Combined with other 'big data' analytics, aggregate results from health risk assessments or health risk appraisals (HRAs) become the building blocks of population health management programs designed to bend the healthcare cost curve. We wanted to see which incentives healthcare companies offer for HRA completion.

Click here to view the chart.

8.) Aligning Value-Based Reimbursement with Physician Practice Transformation

This webinar shares the key features of WellPoint's transformation initiative, including results from its pilot program that have led to a system-wide rollout.


Learn more about this resource.

10.) Health Insurance Exchanges: Product Design, Promotion and Positioning

This resource features insights from key industry consultants, state regulators and health insurers on the primary issues that will affect product designs for state health insurance exchanges.




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11.) Despite Financial Hurdles, Telemedicine Services Well Worth Cost

Despite the significant financial costs of telehealth and telemedicine services, where technologies such as videoconferencing for remote diagnostics are deployed, adopters report impressive gains in medication adherence and care of remote and rural patients, as well as a decrease in health complications, according to new market data from the Healthcare Intelligence Network's 2013 Telehealth and Telemedicine survey.

Get the full story.

12.) 2013 Healthcare Benchmarks: Telehealth & Telemedicine

This resource provides actionable new information from more than 125 healthcare organizations on their utilization of telehealth & telemedicine, and documents trends and metrics on current and planned telehealth and telemedicine initiatives, including a year-over-year comparison of telehealth trends from 2009 to present.


Learn more about this resource.

13.) Infographic: Executive Perspective on the Healthcare IT Landscape

The top healthcare IT priority of healthcare executives is implementing ICD-10, while the most significant barrier is a lack of staffing resources, according to a new infographic from Praetorian Guard. This infographic illustrates highlights of a web-based survey that garnered responses from professionals representing nearly 600 U.S. hospitals.

 Read this blog post.

14.) Using a Home Visit Assessment to Improve Care Transitions Post-Discharge

Modifying a popular hospital admissions risk assessment tool for its own use helps Stanford Coordinated Care to prioritize home visits for its roster of high-risk patients, all of whom have complex chronic conditions, explains Samantha Valcourt, MS, RN, CNS, Stanford's clinical nurse specialist. Stanford's HARMS-11, based on Iowa Healthcare Collaborative's HARMS-8 hospital risk screening tool, looks at individuals' utilization, social support and medication issues, among other factors, to measure a patient's risk of readmission.

The resulting home visits, a critical component of Stanford's care transitions management program, help to uncover health challenges the complex chronic patient may still face, including four common medication adherence barriers Ms. Valcourt describes in this interview. 

Listen to this podcast.

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