Morning Headlines 4/13/17

Trump Threatens to Withhold Payments to Insurers to Press Democrats on Health Bill

In an effort to draw Democrats to the healthcare policy negotiation table, President Trump threatens to withhold payments to insurers meant to cover discounts for low-income consumers, explaining “I don’t want people to get hurt. What I think should happen—and will happen—is the Democrats will start calling me and negotiating.”

The Leapfrog Group Releases Groundbreaking Tool to Estimate Lives and Dollars Lost to Medical Errors

The Leapfrog Group launches a calculator designed to illuminate the impact medical errors have on an employer’s covered population. The calculator estimates the number of avoidable deaths among covered lives, how much employers spend annually due to medical errors within general acute care hospitals, and how much of their total health care spend goes to these medical mistakes.

2017 Venrock Healthcare Prognosis

Venrock publishes results from a survey of “a few hundred of the smartest people we know across healthcare” on the future of healthcare under the new administration and the impact legislative changes will have on various healthcare IT subsectors.

ECMC officials remain mute on cause of computer shutdown

Erie County Medical Center (NY) returns to paper after a virus brings down its network. A hospital spokesman refused to comment on speculation that the virus was actually a ransomware attack, and differed questions about whether it had been contacted by hackers or asked for payments to restore access.