A routine blood test could hold the key to why some patients with congestive heart failure (HF) do well after being discharged from the hospital and why others risk relapse, readmission or death within a year, according to a single-center study published online Feb. 8 in the American Journal of Cardiology.

A two-country hospital study of 808 elderly patients found a strong association between high, undiagnosed blood glucose in nondiabetic patients and increased hospital death rates, according to a study in the March issue of the International Journal of Clinical Practice. Researchers are now calling for routine blood glucose testing of elderly patients when they are admitted to hospital.

HealthGrades has released its 2011 50 Best Hospitals report, and only 19 states had hospitals that made the cut.

Based on impending reimbursement cuts, proposed bundled payments and enhanced quality expectations emerging from the federal government, providers that have been fearing these changes, but not moving to alter their internal processes, would be wise to heed the words of Allan Quatermain in H. Rider Haggards novel. At this weeks annual conference of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) in Orlando, Fla., representatives from a slew of government agencies, including CMS, HHS, ONC, NIST, spoke to the necessity of providers starting to prepare for a change in the U.S. healthcare system, and healthcare practitioners provided examples and guidance for improvement.

Practices are finding innovative approaches to boost their referral base, including the use of sophisticated modules within their EMR, while others are using conventional approaches like consultants and event hosting. But there are many other untapped ways that practices can employ to generate new revenue.

ORLANDO, Fla.--Questions about political and cultural challenges as well as optimal governance dominated the HIMSS roundtable discussion Practical Pearls for Improving Outcomes with Clinical Decision Support (CDS), held Feb. 22 at the annual meeting of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).

ORLANDO, Fla.--The message of the HIMSS11 Physician IT Symposium panel discussion about meaningful use requirements was that EHR adoption is worthwhile--eventually. And when it comes to measuring quality, "trying to do this is a lot harder than it seems," said Dean F. Sittig, PhD, of the University of Texas Memorial Hermanns Center for Healthcare Quality and Safety in Houston. The only way to improve quality is to measure it, but its really hard to measure quality, he said.

You dont want to be a doctor. You want to marry a doctor. These words spoken by my mother were fighting words. I knew at age 10 that I wanted to be a doctor. Although discouraged by family and societal norms for women, my love for science and the desire to help people propelled me to my current professiona seasoned cardiovascular professional with nearly 30 years under my belt.