Morning Headlines 12/19/13

How mandated reporting set infection rates on the decline 

Six years after New York’s Department of Health started publishing hospital-acquired infection data, the rates of most infections are trending downward.

GAO report says CMS’ rule on quality reporting system may be too vague

A GAO report finds that new CMS rules designed to boost participation in PQRS reporting are too vague to have a meaningful impact on participation. The report’s authors suggest that one solution could be to require EHR vendors to develop reporting tools that make it easier to extract the data that the PQRS registry needs.

Saint Francis debt: $50 million

Poughkeepsie, NY-based St.Francis Hospital files bankruptcy after billing issues associated with its recent Meditech implementation leads to millions in unrecoverable lost revenue. CEO Art Nizza took ownership of the problem, saying that the clinical systems worked well because proper attention was paid to their implementation, and that had the same attention been given to the revenue cycle implementation, the problems might not have grown to the point that bankruptcy was necessary.

Ryan Donovan Departs Visa For Late Stage Start-Up

Ryan Donovan will leave his position as head of global PR for Visa to join Practice Fusion as the VP of corporate communications.