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Hospitals call for incentive definitions that promote EHR adoption 12/04/2009
Forty-three hospitals and health systems today urged federal officials to define "hospital" and "hospital-based physician," as outlined in the HITECH Act, in a way that makes health information technology available to the greatest number of hospitals and physicians. In a letter to the White House Office of Health Reform, Department of Health & Human Services and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the group recommends defining a hospital "as a discrete site of service, so that individual sites of multi-campus facilities are eligible to qualify separately for the incentives." Noting that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's HITECH Act provisions define hospital-based physicians as those who furnish substantially all of their services in a hospital setting using the hospital's facilities and equipment, the letter adds, "We are concerned that broad regulatory interpretation of this hospital-based physician definition may inappropriately exclude physicians practicing in outpatient centers and provider-based clinics merely because their office or clinic is located in a facility owned by the hospital."
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WHO reports drug-resistant flu in immunocompromised patients 12/04/2009
Four patients hospitalized in North Carolina with severely compromised immune systems had H1N1 flu viruses resistant to the antiviral drug oseltamivir, the World Health Organization reported this week. The cases occurred between mid-October and early November in a single hospital unit. Around the same time, oseltamivir-resistant H1N1 flu was detected in eight patients with severely compromised immune systems in a hospital unit in Wales, UK. The number of oseltamivir-resistant H1N1 cases rose by 68% in the past two weeks, to 96, but do not appear to suggest a public health threat, WHO said. About one-third of the patients have had severely suppressed immune systems due to cancer, chemotherapy or post-transplant treatment. In other flu-related news, the CDC today reported 82 adverse event reports per 1 million H1N1 vaccine doses distributed, compared with 47 reports for seasonal flu vaccine. No substantial differences were noted in the serious adverse events reported for the two vaccine types.
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CDC report recommends ways to improve coding of state injury data 12/04/2009
A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests recommendations for improving state data on injuries treated in hospitals and emergency departments. Developed during a February meeting with health care and injury prevention groups, including the AHA, the recommendations include: creating a federal repository for state injury data collected from hospitals through e-codes; developing guidelines, training and marketing to improve the collection of e-coded data; and integrating e-coding into national public health objectives and federal data standards.
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Hospital employment climbs 0.14% in November 12/04/2009
Employment at the nation's hospitals rose 0.14% in November to a seasonally adjusted 4,745,400 people, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. That's 6,800 more people than in October and 53,000 more than a year ago. Without the seasonal adjustment, which removes the effect of fluctuations due to seasonal events, hospitals employed 4,751,400 people in November, 9,000 more than in October and 53,400 more than a year ago. The nation's overall unemployment rate fell by 0.2 percentage point in November to 10.0%.
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