Christina's Considerations

Re-Engineering the Hospital Discharge and Reducing Readmissions

Researchers at the Boston University Medical Center (BUMC) developed and tested Re-Engineered Discharge (RED); which has proven to be effective at reducing readmissions and posthospital emergency department (ED) visits. The AHRQ and BUMC have levereged this research and developed a... Read more →

A new healthcare quality metrics: Facebook “likes”

Imagine checking Facebook to identify the quality of care provided at your hospital or to assess patient satisfaction with the experience. Researchers looked at New York hospital mortality rates from Hospital Compare and compared them to their number of Facebook... Read more →

Duke Health and Facebook Advertising Case Study

Facebook has released a case study that highlights the success of Duke Health's advertising on its social networking site. One recent study found that healthcare organizations spend the most on Facebook advertising, but have the lowest returns on their investments.... Read more →

Future of Information-Driven Healthcare Think Tank

I'm fortunate to have been invited to participate in a think tank hosted by Dell with some healthcare social media icons. On Tuesday follow the live stream of the event on the widget below or on Twitter use the hashtag... Read more →

Changes to HIPAA Impacting Healthcare Covered Entities & Business Associates

The 600ish pages of the HIPAA Final Omnibus Rule (published in January) affects nearly every aspect of patient privacy and data security and encompases the: HIPAA Privacy, Security and Enforcement Rules Breach Notification Rule HITECH Act Genetic Information Discrimination Act... Read more →

Digital Access and Patient Experience

FierceHealthIT reported on a study that finds 70% of consumers would be open to a virtual doctor visit. Another key finding is that almost 50% of consumers and 66% of providers would be comfortable sharing and receiving health information through... Read more →

Empathy ... and Compassion

CEO Toby Cosgrove, MD, shared this video, titled "Empathy," with the Cleveland Clinic staff during his 2013 State of the Clinic address on Feb. 27, 2013. Without words it is really powerful and should inspire all! I especially like the... Read more →

Transitional Care Management: Non-Face-To-Face Reimbursement

Originally posted at TOWER's Latest Thinking As of January 1, 2013, the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule includes reimbursement for transitional care management (TCM) services from the hospital to the community setting. The two relevant codes are 99495 and 99496 and... Read more →