- Why hospitals need chief quality officers (fiercehealthcare.com)
healthcare industry transitions from a volume-based to a value-based model, more healthcare organizations are adding the position of chief quality officer..…Care value's increased importance, from value-based care to readmission penalties, has made quality of care a priority.
- The Regulatory Quagmire Of Treatments For Sickle Cell Disease (forbes.com)
…regulatory quagmire for more of the bizarre tales from the FDA and the NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute… more than $15.3 million to fund clinical research for sickle cell disease therapies, including a total of $1.2 million to support three clinical studies…does not meet the strict definition to qualify for additional incentives…
- Retailers will feel impact of overtime pay expansion (drugstorenews.com)
Retailers can expect their labor costs to rise under a new proposal from the Obama administration… food service managers, first-line servers of food preparation and first-line supervisors of retail store workers are…to be affected by the rule…”the law of unintended consequences at a time when the economy and those struggling the most can least afford it”..
- A better road to data interoperability? (healthcareitnews.com)
Instead of building integration and countless interfaces, new tools aim to fix the workflow problem on top of the electronic health record … "Having the government mandate interoperability is completely wrong,"…"I think we should let the market drive it – and the market says physicians want a single workflow."..
- Digital health market continues to ‘mature’ in 2015 (fiercehealthit.com)
The digital health market continues to mature as we move into the second half of 2015,…focus on personalized medicine leading the way,…digital health funding is not outpacing 2014, which was a record year for investments in the market, capital flow is remaining steady this year,...
- Part D plans can continue to cover prescriptions by pharmacists (pharmacist.com)
In a win for pharmacists and their patients, CMS has allowed Medicare Part D plans to continue to be able to cover pharmacy claims at the point of sale for prescriptions written by "other authorized prescribers," such as pharmacists, in an interim final rule...
- Track-and-Trace Law Enforcement Delayed by FDA (pharmacytimes.com)
Track-and-trace requirements of the Drug Quality and Security Act will take effect tomorrow (today), but the FDA will not enforce the product tracing obligations for pharmacies until November.
- CMS pays $8 billion in reinsurance program to keep high-risk covered (healthcarefinancenews.com)
… 2014 benefit year, over $7.9 billion in reinsurance payments will be made to 437 issuers nationwide….Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is spending close to $8 billion in payments to issuers with exceptionally high costs,…analysis shows the reinsurance program is working as intended by compensating issuers that enroll higher risk individuals…
- Access barrier created by distinguishable names for biosimilars, GPhA says (drugstorenews.com)
The Biosimilars Council, a division of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association,...strongly urged the Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration to avoid any departure from the currently accepted international nonproprietary naming system….distinguishable names for biosimilars and biologics would erect barriers to patient access to new, more affordable medicines and could jeopardize their safety.
- Doubts Raised About Off-Label Use of Subsys, a Strong Painkiller (nytimes.com)
….powerful new painkiller... questions are emerging about how the drug is being sold, and to whom…FDA..should be prescribed only by oncologists and pain specialists… But just 1 percent of prescriptions are written by oncologists,.. half of the prescriptions were written by pain specialists, and a wide range of doctors prescribed the rest,…