BOSTONWith minorities and seniors as two of the largest, fastest-growing segments of the population, the health system needs to look to reducing variation of care as a quality improvement initiative, according to Kevin Lofton, CEO and president of the Denver-based Catholic Health Initiatives during the 9th Annual Healthcare Quality Congress, presented by the World Congress.

In contrast to Canada, U.S. physician practices spend nearly four times more interacting with payors, according to researchers in the August edition of Health Affairs.

Successful health information exchanges (HIEs) tend to charge per subscription, rather than per usage, which could potentially discourage data sharing, according to a report released from National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC),  which includes case studies from 12 sustainable HIEs.

Most hospitals feel the U.S. governments healthcare agencies treat them unfairly when auditing their Medicare claims but, by an even wider margin, they admit that the auditing process does what its supposed to do. Those are among the standout conclusions of a survey by Ivans, a healthcare consulting firm based in Stamford, Conn.

BOSTONThe concept of providers engaging the employers in a discussion around changing how care is delivered is going to spread rapidly for those providers who are going to survive, Ashok N. Rai, MD, president and CEO at Prevea Health, a health network with 28 health centers servicing northeast Wisconsin, said in an interview, during the 9th Annual Health Care Quality Congress presented by the World Congress.

While surveillance programs focused on chronic diseases are effective, these types of systems currently do not exist and do not operate in a coordinated manner to integrate and report current chronic disease data across the U.S. Thus, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention turned to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to create a framework for a national surveillance system, and the institute concluded that surveillance systems can improve the monitoring and tracking of chronic diseases.

Relating to accountable care organization (ACO) initiatives, providers do not currently have the infrastructure required to take on and manage risk successfully, though some payors are providing infrastructure and other support to providers, according to a July report published by the Commonwealth Fund.

Hospitals that consistently demonstrate superior performance in both acute MI (AMI) and heart failure (HF) measures have a significantly lower risk-adjusted mortality rate than hospitals that achieve a superior performance in only one or neither measure, according to a study published in the Aug. 2 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The results suggest that a combined set of cardiovascular disease measures may more accurately reflect the quality of care in a hospital and optimize patient outcomes.