Betsy Weaver Ed.D.

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MedCity Influencers

Does Your Technology Improve Patient Care & Outcomes?

The 2015 Medicare Access CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) outlines plans to overhaul reimbursements to physicians, based in part on their ability to provide quality care and to improve patient experience and outcomes. One of the main goals the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has for MACRA is for individual healthcare providers to use technology […]

MedCity Influencers

API vs. Portal in Meaningful Use 3

As Meaningful Use moved to Stage 3 (MU3) in 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) added APIs (application programming interface) as an alternative or complement to patient portals. But are these two digital health tools at odds with each other? And where do APIs fit in with Meaningful Use Stage 3? An […]

News

Are Patient Portals Going the Way of the Dinosaur? (Infographic)

Patient portals—websites allowing patients to easily and securely access their EHRs and even communicate with their providers—were one of the big recommendations of MU2 in 2012. CMS promoted portals as a way for patients to access their EHRs and for providers to demonstrate that their patients were actually doing this, calling the portal “a powerful […]

MedCity Influencers

CMS’s Bundled Payment Plan for Joint Replacement Is Here to Stay

This week, CMS released its final rule for Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR), putting 790 hospitals on notice that hip and knee replacement reimbursements from the nation’s largest insurer will be tied to cost containment and high standards for patient care. CMS plans to test the initiative at those hospitals—selected from 67 metropolitan statistical […]

MedCity Influencers

3 Reasons Providers Need to Manage the Entire Episode of Care

Preparing for the CMS Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement Project The most important takeaway from the latest CMS effort to rein in costs, achieve positive patient outcomes and lower hospital readmission rates and complication rates is that hospitals must now manage the entire episode of care. CMS’s Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CCJR) bundled-payment program mandates […]

Daily

Is it time to give the term ‘patient engagement’ a rest?

With the proliferation of patient engagement technology phrases such as patient education, patient activation and patient/provider connections have increasingly become meaningless. They now mean everything and, therefore, nothing. What are we really trying to do to, for and with our patients? What should we seek in terms of involving them in their care? What does patient […]