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Although many physicians are wary of pay-for-performance programs, regional health information organizations could play an important role in overcoming the barriers standing in the way of establishing such programs, speakers at the World Healthcare Innovation and Technology Congress in Washington, D.C., said on Thursday. more»

World Congress, the leading producer of global healthcare forums such as the The World Healthcare Congress and Leadership Summit Series, announced today that the European project PIPS (Personalized Information Platform for Life and Health Services) was unveiled today at the 2nd World Healthcare Innovation and Technology Congress (WHITC), in Washington, D.C. more»

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has developed a draft guide for disease and condition registries that are standalone data collections that follow the outcomes of affected individuals over time. The agency of the Health and Human Services Department seeks public comment on the draft. more»

Acting CMS Administrator Leslie Norwalk on Wednesday in a keynote speech to the World Healthcare Innovation and Technology Congress said that without the enactment of legislation to promote health care information technology, CMS "might have to help forward health IT on a regulatory basis," CQ HealthBeat reports. more»

If you've been longing for the day when you could receive your prescription via email, print it out from home or the office, and get it filled shortly thereafter, then hold tight - that day might soon be coming. Continua Health Alliance, a coalition that promotes interoperable personal health and medical devices, is gathering benefit managers from its member organizations to test e-health initiatives and create telehealth networks. more»

Our goal is to provide better quality health care for Medicare beneficiaries at a lower cost and healthcare information technology (IT) systems are going to help us get there; it is one of my top priorities," Leslie V. Norwalk, Acting Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said today in a keynote speech at the World Healthcare Innovation and Technology Congress (WHITC). more»

Our goal is to provide better quality health care for Medicare beneficiaries at a lower cost and healthcare information technology (IT) systems are going to help us get there; it is one of my top priorities," Leslie V. Norwalk, Acting Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said today in a keynote speech at the World Healthcare Innovation and Technology Congress (WHITC). more»

The prospect of obtaining disease registries from electronic health records is an enticing one, two speakers at a health technology conference said today. more»

The United Kingdom’s citizens are healthier than those in the United States, it spends half as much money on healthcare than America does, and Great Britain now appears to have left its former pesky colony in the dust when it comes to pay for performance. more»

A sea change in the race to compete for business in a growing health care information technology market was signaled with the release of a first round of national software vendor certifications by the federally funded Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT). more»

Among a laundry list of proposed changes to policies and payment for hospital outpatient services unveiled on Tuesday, the Bush administration, via the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS; Baltimore), asked for a cut of 5.1% across the board in Medicare payments for services provided by doctors to elderly and disabled patients in the outpatient setting in 2007. more»

In an afternoon keynote on the second day of the Pay-For-Performance leadership summit, Arnold Milstein, MD, of Mercer Human Resources Consulting (New York), provided the payer perspective on P4P, bringing with him several years’ experience as a member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Committee (MedPAC). more»

Assessing the sustainability of payment reform” is not only an exercise in prognostication – one that is difficult to avoid indulging in of late – and also the title of a discussion at the fourth annual Leadership Summit on Healthcare Quality & Pay-For-Performance held here at the Marriott Copley Place hotel. more»

The 4th Annual World Congress Leadership Summit on Healthcare Quality and Pay-for- Performance wraps up in Boston today. Over 300 decision makers and experts from provider and insurer organizations are tackling tough issues such as the sustainability of payment reform, and how best to measure quality as a result of P4P. more»

Nearly 100 nursing lead-ers from across the country convened June 15-16 at the Allerton Crowne Plaza in downtown Chicago. Their mission was lofty — to tackle the tough issues facing our healthcare industry today and into the future. Presented by World Congress, the Leadership Summit for Senior Healthcare and Nurse Executives included sessions about improving the work environment, addressing the current state of medical care in the U.S., raising cultural commitment among nurses and increasing hospital performance through efficient systems. more»

The medical device industry must consider its role in cost containment and cost-effectiveness in the overall U.S. healthcare picture, argued experts at the recent World Healthcare Congress in Washington, D.C. The U.S. healthcare system is lagging behind its fellow industrialized nations in terms of the quality and cost of healthcare, and the degree to which it is willing to learn from models in other countries may be key, experts said. more»

If the financial markets operated like the healthcare market does with data, you would have to call 100 people every day to find out how the market is doing," said Greg Simon, CEO of FasterCures. The need for the pharmaceutical industry to make better use of large existing databases was the theme of a panel discussion Simon moderated at the World Health Care Congress in Washington, D.C. on April 20. more»

Not many knew that the `Knowledge Commission' is working on a report, until the Finance Minister (FM), P. Chidambaram, said so, on April 17. Inaugurating the Biocon Pharmaceuticals' multi-product biologics facility in Bangalore, the FM said he was waiting for the report to make more investments in the fields of IT (information technology) and BT (biotechnology). more»