August is National Immunization Awareness Month (NIAM). NIAM highlights the need for improving national immunization levels and encourages all people to protect their health by getting immunized against infectious diseases. The observance is a great way to promote...

The American Hospital Association (AHA) recently released a toolkit to improve community health and patient outreach in rural areas and vulnerable urban areas. Access the toolkit As value-based care continues to take hold, health systems are making more of a concerted...

As hospitals continue to lower readmission rates and satisfy new value-based incentives, mortality rates have also dropped, signaling improvement in care quality. A new study published in JAMA analyzed about 5 million Medicare fee-for-service hospitalizations between...

A new interactive map from AHRQ allows users to explore state-specific information about opioid-related hospital stays. Users may find, for example: Between 2005 and 2014, the national rate of opioid-related inpatient stays increased 64.1 percent and the national rate...

The new payment rule posted Monday by CMS has skilled nursing facilities obtaining a 1% federal payment rise; an increase of $370 million. This increase is for all post-acute providers and was mandated by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015.  The...

There is much data to help patients decide on a hospital. But, which data is valuable and worth your attention? How do we compare two hospitals with different patient demographics in different locations? Are we making fair comparisons? A recent study by health...

The Critical Access Hospital (CAH) program in Nebraska was recently recognized for outstanding quality performance. Ten states, including Nebraska, were identified as ‘top-performing’ states; others included Wisconsin, Maine, Utah, Minnesota, Illinois and Pennsylvania...

100 million people in the United States have diabetes or prediabetes and this number is growing. The CDC’s Division of Diabetes Translation (DDT) recently released the newest National Diabetes Statistics Report, which highlights current data on diabetes incidence and...

Every year tens of thousands of adults needlessly suffer, are hospitalized and even die as a result of diseases that could be prevented by vaccines¹. While adults believe immunization is important, a recent national survey showed that most adults are not aware that...

Through implementation of their House Calls Program, Methodist Physician’s Clinic in Omaha, Nebraska set out to help patients access the right care in the right place at the right time -- whether they are at home, at an assisted living or at a Skilled Nursing Facility...