Analytical services provider IMS Health has acquired Med-Vantage, a San Francisco-based software technology company, expanding IMS capabilities in the payor marketplace. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Driven by robust clinical information systems, rigorous performance measurement has led Intermountain Healthcare in Utah to achieve healthcare's holy grail: vastly improved patient outcomes at substantially lower costs.

Applying the Toyota business concept of Lean Manufacturing--a quality improvement (QI) method aimed at reducing waste--to radiology can spur optimized value and enhanced QI, according to an article published in the June issue of the Journal of American College of Radiology.

Accountable care organizations (ACOs) offer an opportunity for providers to participate in Medicare in a new wayrewarding better care for patients, said John Pilotte, director of performance-based payment policy staff at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), who made his comments during a June 2 webinar. 

Massachusetts' innovative use of pay-for-performance bonuses to attempt to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the case of Medicaid patients has turned up no evidence of the problem at any of the state's 66 acute-care hospitals, according to a study published in the June edition of Health Affairs.

Medicaid will stop reimbursing states for any amounts expended for providing medical assistance for provider-preventable events, including healthcare-acquired conditions, effective July 1.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has made available approximately $40 million to strengthen and better coordinate activities within state and territorial health departments aimed at preventing chronic diseases and promoting health.

Like much of medicine, radiology suffers from a backward perspective on performance improvement. Most industries have moved beyond punitive programs like peer review to predict and prevent errors at the system level, rather than report them at the individual one, explained the authors of a June perspectives article in Radiology.