Using patient experience scores from the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) is working as intended within CMS’s Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) program, according to a study published in the journal Health Affairs.

Minnesota was ranked no. 1, while Alaska finished at the bottom, in a state-by-state ranking of healthcare quality and cost-effectiveness by personal finance site WalletHub.

Patients who suffered low-level traumatic injuries were at greatest risk of dying two to three weeks after being injured, according to study of European patients.

Clostridium difficile, commonly abbreviated as C. diff, infected nearly a half-million people in 2011, with 65 percent of those cases related to a hospital stay. Athena's Peter Barnes looked at several new treatments hospitals are developing either to prevent the infections in the first place or fight them once antibiotics stop working.

While CMS touted the latest quality and financial reports from Medicare accountable care organizations (ACO) as positives, its data said the agency spent $217 million more in bonuses to ACOs than what the programs are projected to have saved.

Instead of the “deny-and-defend” strategy typically employed when a medical procedure goes wrong, more hospitals and physicians are getting used to the idea of a more open, honest discussion about adverse events.

In response to the view of two Duke University professors who claimed accountable care organizations (ACOs) “have failed to produce needed efficiencies,” another JAMA Viewpoints article defends the ACO model and encourages CMS not to abandon it.

Nearly half (49 percent) of men responding to an American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) survey rated their health as excellent or very good, but 48 percent said they’ve been diagnosed with a chronic condition, such as high blood pressure, diabetes or cancer.