ED physicians are the hospital gatekeepers
Emergency department physicians are now responsible for nearly half of all hospital admissions, according to a study conducted by the RAND Corporation. The research suggests that despite efforts to reduce patients’ reliance on the ED, the number of hospital admissions that come from the ED has increased 17% from 2003 to 2009. During the same period, hospitals saw a 10% reduction in admissions from doctors’ office and other outpatient settings. This is in part because primary care physicians have increasingly been turning to the ED to evaluate their complex patients. The study found that four in five people who contacted … Read more »
Diagnosing depression with facial recognition technology
You may have heard about telepsychiatry, where patients connect with mental health professionals via video conferencing, but what about simpsychiatry? SimSensei is a software program featuring a virtual human that interacts with real life patients to assess their depression level. The program was developed by computer scientists at the University of Southern California and uses the XBOX Kinnect technology to measure patients’ facial expressions, body posture, acoustic features, linguistic patterns, and other movements as they respond to a series of questions. SimSensei can process the patients’ movements and respond in real time. In a video that demonstrates how the program … Read more »
CMS sets aside $1 billion to fund innovation
Does your hospital or healthcare system have an idea for an innovative payment or service delivery model that you want to test? If so, you may be eligible to claim a piece of the $1 billion CMS has set aside for round two of the Health Care Innovation Awards. The Health Care Innovation Awards were established under the Affordable Care Act and provide opportunity to improve the quality of health care and bring down costs for taxpayers and patients. Last year, CMS received 3,000 round one applications and awarded funds to 107 organizations located in all 50 states, the District … Read more »
Hospital charges vary widely
Earlier this month, CMS made available the amounts hospitals charge for the top 100 most frequently billed discharges paid under Medicare. The charges vary wildly not only across the country, but sometimes across the state or even city. For example, one hospital in Manhattan charged $8,900 for hypertension, while another across town charged $23,700 for the same condition. Those same two hospitals charge $17,700 and $94,400 respectively for renal failure with a major complication or comorbid condition. While hospitals do not set the rate at which they are reimbursed by Medicare, they do set the amount they charge. In some … Read more »
Analysis predicts dramatic shortage of urologists by 2025
The combination of rising demand and decreasing supply will leave the US with a dramatic shortage of urologists in just 12 years. New analysis performed by Dr. Raj S. Pruthi predicts that the urologist workforce will be 29% smaller in 2025. The forecast model also predicts a 25% decrease in the full-time equivalent (FTE) supply of urologists within the same time period. Dr. Pruthi and his colleagues started with the supply of urologists in 2009 and subsequently added new entrants from the graduate medical education (GME) pipeline and subtracted urologists who are expected to retire or take breaks from practice. … Read more »
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