Headline
The latest stories from AHA Today.
Eight national hospital organizations, including the AHA, today urged the Department of Health and Human Services to immediately release a final rule easing 鈥渕eaningful use鈥 requirements for fiscal years 2015-2017 under the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record Incentive鈥
A new AHA task force will work to confirm the characteristics of vulnerable rural and urban communities and identify strategies and federal policies to help ensure access to care in these areas. Chaired by Robert Henkel, president and CEO of St. Louis-based Ascension Health, the 30-member Task鈥
Anthem鈥檚 proposed acquisition of Cigna and Aetna鈥檚 proposed acquisition of Humana have 鈥渢he very real potential鈥 to substantially reduce competition and the insurers鈥 willingness to partner with health care providers and consumers in transforming care, the AHA told the鈥
The AHA last week called on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to extend the partial enforcement delay of the two-midnight policy to conform with other proposed changes to the policy.
The 2015 Health Forum and AHA Leadership Summit, held July 23-25 in San Francisco, brought together health care leaders to discuss ways to transform the delivery system for better quality and value; improve alignment between providers, physicians and payers; and achieve greater clinical integration鈥
Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) today asked the Federal Communications Commission to delay by three months technical rules that would allow unlicensed TV White Space devices to operate on the same bandwidth hospitals use for patient monitoring.
Inpatient mortality rates among adults declined by 45% for pneumonia, 41% for heart attack, 29% for congestive heart failure and 27% for stroke between 2002 and 2012, according to a new report by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The report looks at the declines by patient鈥
Half of the nation鈥檚 primary care physicians view increased use of quality metrics and financial penalties for unnecessary hospitalizations as potentially troubling for patient care, according to a survey released today by the Commonwealth Fund and Kaiser Family Foundation.
The Alabama Hospital Association today named as its next president Donald Williamson, M.D., who currently serves as state health officer for the Alabama Department of Public Health and chair of the Alabama Medicaid Transition Task Force. He will assume the association鈥檚 presidency around鈥
Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) today introduced the Mental Health Reform Act. According to the sponsors, the bipartisan legislation would create an assistant secretary within the Department of Health and Human Services to coordinate federal mental health services, a committee to鈥