QIO News Posts
AHRQ National Scorecard: Hospital-Acquired Conditions Drop 21 Percent Over Five Years
The National Scorecard on Rates of Hospital-Acquired Conditions shows that about 125,000 fewer patients died and more than $28 billion in healthcare costs was saved from 2010 through 2015 due to a 21 percent drop in hospital-acquired conditions (HACs). In...
Patient Engagement, Education Can Improve Medication Safety
Providers can better detect prescribing mistakes through strong patient engagement and education, ultimately boosting medication safety, new research from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) shows. The report, which focuses...
Five Resources to Help Reduce Health Disparities Among Vulnerable Populations
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Office of Minority Health’s (OMH) vision is to eliminate disparities in healthcare quality and access and to help all CMS consumers achieve their highest level of health. The office’s target populations include...
Caregivers: You Must Make Yourself a Priority
If you are a caregiver - have you let taking care of yourself fall off the to-do list? For those who are in the role of a caregiver, it’s time to put YOU back on top! Taking care of your physical and emotional needs is one of the most important things you can do as a...
National Influenza Vaccination Week
National Influenza Vaccination Week (NIVW), December 4-10, 2016, provides an opportunity to remind everyone 6 months and older that it is not too late to get a flu vaccine. There are many tools and resources to help in your efforts to share flu prevention and...
Costs to Manage Diabetes – A Life-Threatening Obstacle
Insulin Cost Warrants Call for Congressional Investigation Increasing costs for medication to manage diabetes have become a life-threatening obstacle and the American Diabetes Association is calling for action. Despite advancements in manufacturing since the discovery...
National Handwashing Awareness Week
National Handwashing Awareness Week (December 4 - 6, 2016) is dedicated to helping people remain healthy one handwash at a time. Given the prevalence of preventable Hospital-Acquired Infections (HAIs) among individuals and their family members, this observance aims to...
Top Three Factors for Unexpected Healthcare Cost Increase in 2015
Prescription medication, hospitalizations and emergency room visit costs showed the biggest increase in cost contributing to a 4.6% overall increase for 2015. Health Care Cost Institute completed a data analysis from the nation’s four major insurers to investigate...
“It always seems too early, until it’s too late.”
Having the Conversation.... It’s not easy to talk about how we want our end of life to be. However, it is one of the most important conversations you can have with your loved ones. All too often, family members are left to make choices and healthcare decisions on...
CMS Launches New Online Tool to Make Quality Payment Program Easier
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released a tool to share automatically electronic data for the Medicare Quality Payment Program. This new release is the first in a series that will be part of CMS’s ongoing efforts to spur the creation...