Americans made more than 1.1 billion visits annually to physician offices and hospital emergency and outpatient departments in 2004, up by 31% since 1994, according to the latest data released by The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on June 23, in its annual national hospital ambulatory medical...
Credentialing Resource Center Digest - Volume 7, Issue 25
The nation's emergency medical system as a whole is overburdened, underfunded, highly fragmented, and ill-prepared to handle surges from disasters, according to a series of reports released June 14 by the Institute of Medicine (IoM). The IoM's recommendations for resolving these problems include...
Credentialing Resource Center Digest - Volume 7, Issue 24
A new study from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) has found that community-based preparation for and response to disasters will require more effective communication and planning among hospitals, public health agencies, and community first responders than...
Credentialing Resource Center Digest - Volume 7, Issue 23
Physicians in regions with high-intensity medical care (i.e., a higher number of hospital beds and specialists per capita) report less satisfaction with their careers and perceive the quality of care they provide to be lower than physicians in regions with less healthcare spending per capita,...
Credentialing Resource Center Digest - Volume 7, Issue 22
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) issued a report May 22 predicting that the supply of physicians who specialize in treating critically ill patients likely won't keep up with growing demand. About 2,000 critical care physicians, or intensivists, currently work in the nation...
Credentialing Resource Center Digest - Volume 7, Issue 21
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) announced that the implementation of the new requirement for Medical Staff standard MS.1.20 has been delayed until January 2007. The JCAHO closed a field review of MS.1.20 in early March 2006 addressing what information...
Credentialing Resource Center Digest - Volume 7, Issue 20
A study of malpractice litigation claims, published in the May 11, 2006 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, concluded that 40% of claims were without merit, including those with no evidence of injury (3%) and claims that were not associated with medical errors (37%). However, the study...
Credentialing Resource Center Digest - Volume 7, Issue 20
The American Medical Association (AMA) on May 8 issued a statement to refute the "flawed analysis" in a study published in the May/June issue of Health Affairs. The study's authors, a law professor and two law students, contended that perceptions of a liability crisis are overblown based on data...
Credentialing Resource Center Digest - Volume 7, Issue 19
The New Hampshire state Senate unanimously passed legislation May 4 to prohibit the sale of physicians' prescription information to pharmaceutical, insurance, and data-mining companies for commercial purposes. If Gov. John Lynch (D) signs the bill, the state will become the first in the nation...
Credentialing Resource Center Digest - Volume 7, Issue 18
A board member of the American Medical Association (AMA) last week testified in Congress in support of medical liability reform, calling on legislators to cap non-economic damages. The U.S. House of Representatives passed medical liability legislation, H.R. 5, last July. Now the Senate is...
