3 Stories You Need: State of Health IT, Effects of Observation Status, Perspective on ICD-10

We know you’re busy, but we don’t want you to miss important healthcare quality and patient safety news. Here are a few stories you may want to take a look at before calling it a week. (Sign up on the right if you’d like these news alerts delivered to you.)

1. 25 things to know about the state of health IT
   Consider the challenges that lie ahead after a banner year for health IT as you read Becker’s summary of progress made in EHR adoption, interoperability, cybersecurtiy and more.
2. Readmissions or just putting more patients under observation?
   After taking a close-up look at Medicare claims data, The Wall Street Journal  analyzes the pros and cons of disguised readmissions categorized by hospitals as “observation.”
3. Death by Flaming Water Ski, and Other Misfortunes
   “Instead of bureaucratic and nitpicking, the system could be viewed as uncompromising and ambitious, a bid to give form to chaos,” explains Alastair Gee, reporter for The New Yorker. A quick read, Gee’s exploration of ICD-10 is entertaining as well as informative for those who may be in the dark as to the origin of healthcare’s colossal coding system.