(The Joint Commission: Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois) -- Beginning Jan. 1, 2009, under a new Joint Commission policy, laboratory accreditation decisions will no longer immediately affect hospital accreditation decisions.

(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services: Washington, D.C.) -- As the beginning of the annual election period for the Medicare Prescription Drug Program nears, many seniors and their caregivers are in the dark about how the program works and how to make the most of it.

(Press Ganey Associates Inc.: South Bend, Indiana) -- By analyzing patient satisfaction data representing 1.5 million patients and 1,158 hospitals across the nation from January 2007 through June 2008, Press Ganey Associates Inc.

(AHRQ: Rockville, Maryland) -- The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act (Patient Safety Act) authorized the creation of patient safety organizations (PSOs) to improve safety through the collection and analysis of data on patient safety events.

(National Quality Forum: Washington, D.C.) -- To support consumer engagement and improved quality in health care, the National Quality Forum (NQF) endorsed guidelines for consumer-focused, internet-based public reporting.

(Best Practices LLC: Chapel Hill, North Carolina) -- Within the hospital marketplace, pharmaceutical and biotechnology salespeople must negotiate increasingly complex organizational and decision-making structures to effectively represent their brands.

(Medco Health Solutions Inc.: Franklin Lakes, N.J.) -- Noting that the United States spends twice as much per capita on health care as most other developed nations, but achieves no better clinical outcomes, Medco Health Solutions Inc. chairman and CEO, David B.

(HHS: Washington, D.C.) -- The Chartered Value Exchanges (CVEs) is a growing movement to build a health care system where consumers, providers, and payers make decisions based on the value and quality of care.

(AHRQ: Rockville, Maryland) -- Potentially preventable medical errors that occur during or after surgery may cost employers nearly $1.5 billion a year, according to new estimates by the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

(CMS: Baltimore, Maryland) -- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) announced payment of more than $36 million in bonus payments to many of the more than 56,700 health professionals who satisfactorily reported quality information to Medicare under the 2007 Physician Quality Reporting In