Americans hit the brakes on health care spending from MSNBC

U.S. healthcare spending barely rose in 2010 from record-low recession levels, as high unemployment and the loss of private health insurance forced many Americans to delay or forego medical treatment, government officials said on Monday.

Spending edged up 3.9 percent, bringing the total size of the U.S. healthcare system to $2.6 trillion, or $8,402 per person, according to a report released by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, and published in the journal Health Affairs.

Growth in 2010 was only a slim 0.1 percentage point higher than the 3.8 percent recorded in 2009, which was the lowest rate recorded in half a century. Per capita health spending in the United States is still the highest worldwide.

"It's absolutely clear what's going on," said William Galston of the Brookings Institution. "People's budgets have been hard-hit, and even if they have 20 percent co-pays from their insurance companies, that 20 percent may still be too much."

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Big providers compare notes on product usage from HealthIT.com

ST. LOUIS, MO – The Healthcare Transformation Group (HTG), a collaborative of Geisinger Health System, Intermountain Healthcare, Kaiser Permanente, Mayo Clinic and Mercy, is seeking to spur efficiency and safety by performing data analysis to determine specific product lines the group has in common.

Earlier this year, the HTG hosted a summit with its top 20 suppliers to discuss how to move the healthcare industry forward with GS1 Standards adoption. Each supplier shared their plans and timeline toward adoption, and asked what product lines or manufacturing divisions they should focus on first in the adoption of standards in healthcare. 


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A Health Care System Tailor-Made For Patients from H and H Networks

Incorporating patient perspectives into the design of health care delivery was one of the major themes of the recently concluded Institute for Healthcare Improvement 2011 National Forum in Orlando. The meeting marked the first time patients were on the IHI faculty, and session after session featured patients and advocates describing their firsthand experiences to an audience of hospital administrators and clinicians.

Of course, excellent patient care has always been the desired end result in health care — the hard part is delivering on that promise, and an emerging school of thought suggests that listening to patients is an essential part of achieving excellent outcomes. During a press briefing at IHI, Gary Kaplan, M.D., chairman and CEO of Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, noted that his system puts patients at the top of its care "pyramid," and emphasizes listening to their stories as one way of meeting that goal.

"We asked [patients], how did it feel lying on stretcher outside the operating room?" Kaplan said.

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Government to pay $94M to build federal health insurance exchange from HealthIT

FAIRFAX, VA – The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) tapped CGI Federal Inc. to build the government’s health insurance exchange, Federal Exchange (FX).

The contract has an estimated total value of $93.7 million over a two-year base with three, one-year option periods. The $55.7 million base contract has been awarded.

Under the contract, CGI will work with CCIIO to develop and implement the Federal Exchange in line with the provision in the Affordable Care Act that requires the creation of a competitive health insurance marketplace for states and territories to help bring insurance coverage to 34 million additional Americans.

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