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Promoting Innovation And Leadership In The Allied Health Professions (AHPs)
The Allied Health Professions Leadership Challenge winners are East Midlands SHA, The Department of Health announced today.
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New Maryland Law Requires Insurers To Provide Incentives For EHR Adoption
Maryland Gov. Martin O"Malley (D) on Tuesday signed a bill making the state the first to require private insurance companies to offer physicians financial incentives for adopting electronic health records, the Baltimore Sun reports. Starting in 2011, insurers will have to provide physicians who adopt EHRs with increased reimbursements, a single sum payment or in-kind services that have monetary value. According to the Sun, physicians who do not adopt EHR systems by 2015 could face penalties. The bill also requires Maryland to establish a health information exchange that eventually will link all the state"s physicians, hospitals, medical laboratories and pharmacies. Last summer, the Maryland Health Care Commission asked two state physician groups to develop and launch pilot health information exchange programs in an effort to see how a state system should work. Groups wanting to design the statewide system have until June 12 to submit applications to the commission, which will award the contract in August. The seed money for the system will come in part from stimulus funds and from hospitals fees. According to state Health Secretary John Colmers, the network is likely to be gradually phased in with the first elements coming online as early as fall. Colmers said that he expects "fairly rapid adoption" of the information exchange system, adding that "with the incentives in the stimulus package and in this bill beginning to go into effect in 2011, it will be important for it to be certainly ramped up and ready to operate by then." O"Malley said, "This is where government and private health care providers can come together to really improve not only the quality of care but also, hopefully, create some cost savings as well." Colmers said, "The goal here in Maryland was to assure that all of the payers pull their oars in the same direction," adding that the promise of EHRs "comes when it"s done in a coordinated fashion, across all payers" (Brown/Brewington, Baltimore Sun, 5/19).
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Lifespan Of Old Mice Extended By Easter Island Compound
The giant monoliths of Easter Island are worn, but they have endured for centuries. New research suggests that a compound first discovered in the soil of the South Pacific island might help us stand the test of time, too.
Endocrinology

Reform Editorials Examine Rationed Care, Taxing Health Benefits

Wall Street Journal: A recent decision by CMS to end Medicare coverage of virtual colonoscopies is "a preview of how health care will be rationed when Democrats" create "a new "universal" health insurance entitlement for the middle class," a Journal editorial states. According to the editorial, the prospects of such a health system are "playing out in miniature in Medicare" where CMS has decided that offering an alternative to the traditional colonoscopy is "too pricey." The editorial states that the situation features "precisely the sort of complexity that the Democrats would prefer to ignore as they try to restructure health care" and use comparative effectiveness research to determine what works best for the majority of patients. According to the editorial, "The problem is that what "works best" isn"t the same for everyone." It continues that CMS "made the hard-and-fast choice that it was cheaper to cut [virtual colonoscopies] ... for all beneficiaries. If some patients are worse off, well, too bad." The editorial concludes that the situation is "merely a preview of the life-and-death decisions that will be determined by politics" if Democrats enact their ideal system (Wall Street Journal, 5/19). Washington Post: President Obama should reconsider his stance against taxing health care benefits in order to fund health care reform because such a plan would "help hold down health care costs and be fairer to low-income [U.S. residents] than the current system," a Post editorial states. The editorial continues that it is not necessary to completely tax health benefits because a partial tax could still "produce significant sums while avoiding the destabilizing effect" of enacting a full tax. The editorial concludes, "Expanding coverage is important; so is paying for it. The more revenue s left on the table at this point, the better the likely outcome" (Washington Post, 5/19). Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. © 2009 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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