In January 2016, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt announced that CMS would update Meaningful Use to focus more on patient care and outcomes.

At the same time, Slavitt brought renewed attention to the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015—MACRA—triggering confusion among hospitals and health systems already scrambling to attest to Meaningful Use. 

Many questions arose. What is MACRA? What is the relationship between MACRA and Meaningful Use? Is Meaningful Use over?

By now it seems that every hospital has a patient portal. But is everyone—hospitals and patients alike—using them to their full potential? According to one survey, many patients still don’t know their providers offer portals. As providers, we also depend on getting patients to visit their portals to initiate patient-provider communication. When used well, portals help hospitals engage patients and meet Meaningful Use requirements. The challenge is in how to make good use of your patient portal.

HealthEast Care System was determined to use our portal to improve health outcomes through proactive, consistent health information that patients could access anywhere. Here’s how we did it.

Preparing for the CMS Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement Project

Research continues to find that in-home rehab after joint surgery is as cost-effective and equal in outcomes and patient satisfaction to inpatient rehab facilities.   

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 (CJR) bundled-payment program mandates that 790 U.S. hospitals take responsibility for the care quality and total cost of hip and knee replacements, from surgery out through 90 days of rehabilitation and recovery. But the writing is on the wall for all hospitals, health systems and providers: Engaging patients throughout the care continuum—before, during and after surgery—will improve outcomes, decrease readmissions, earn CMS incentive payments and avoid penalties.

A recent study in Pediatrics suggests that patients (in this case, mothers) are not receiving consistent information and advice from their providers—Maternal Report of Advice Received for Infant Care (Eisenberg et al, August 2015)

“Mothers commonly report receiving either no advice or recommendation inconsistent advice from each of the four sources we studied [doctors, birth hospital nurses, family, and media] regarding immunization, breastfeeding, sleep position, sleep location and pacifier use.”

Before you brush off this data as just an attack on overworked nurses and doctors who are drowning in paperwork and EHR integration, I’d like to offer a different perspective.