Value-based care represents one of health care’s most important transformations, driving hospitals and health systems to focus on outcomes that truly matter. To succeed in this model, organizations must track and improve their performance metrics continuously, making data health care’s most valuable currency. It is the foundation for improving patient care, reducing complications, and optimizing…
After the longest government shutdown in U.S. history (one triggered by battles over health care funding) the core issue remains unresolved. Neither political party has produced a durable solution. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) projects U.S. health care spending will reach nearly $9 trillion by 2035, consuming 20 percent to 22 percent of GDP….
CMS has made substantial progress on its goal for all people with Traditional Medicare to be in a care relationship with accountability for quality and total cost of care by 2030. As of January 2025, 53.4% of people with Traditional (fee-for-service) Medicare are in an accountable care relationship with a provider. This represents more than…
Generative artificial intelligence can identify social determinants of health within EHR notes, accurately and without bias, determining which patients might need extra support, according to Somerville, Mass.-based Mass General Brigham. The health system’s researchers fine-tuned large language models to automatically extract information about social determinants — factors such as housing, employment and family status that…
Patients who have had vascular surgeries are often readmitted to the hospital for a variety of reasons — often preventable — more often than patients who undergo different types of surgeries. These readmissions could be largely avoided if other aspects of the discharge process were improved, according to research led by the University of Missouri in Columbia….
As the medical industry continues to understand how social determinants of health impact overall wellness, the topics of environment and climate change have come into view. SDOH specifically refer to the environments in which individuals live, work, and play. Currently, most stakeholders are zooming in on factors like houselessness or food insecurity as leading SDOH…
This week, a group of senior officials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), some from the Center for Medicare, some from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI, also called The Innovation Center) authored an op-ed in the Perspectives section of The New England Journal of Medicine online, in which they outline their…
For Morgan Honea, CEO of CORHIO (a Contexture organization), the value of interoperability between healthcare and dental settings revealed itself during his earlier career running federally qualified health centers (FQHCs). “I’ve spent most of my career integrating primary, oral, and behavioral healthcare in a service delivery setting,” Honea told EHRIntelligence in an interview. “There are so many medical…
Data standards and community stewardship are critical elements for social determinants of health (SDOH) data exchange, according to Greg Bloom, strategic advisor on community resources and engagement for the Gravity Project, a community-led HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) Accelerator. The Gravity Project worked with healthcare stakeholders such as health IT vendors, payers, providers, philanthropies,…
Loneliness and social isolation rose alarmingly during the COVID-19 pandemic as lockdowns proliferated and in-person gatherings were discouraged. A critical social determinant of health (SDOH), social isolation is estimated to have increased by 6.7 percentage points during the pandemic. To help combat this and other SDOH issues, providers and payers are turning to data analytics. Several companies have…