U.S. hospitals are doing a more effective job treating patients for heart attacks, pneumonia and surgical procedures, an independent healthcare accreditation organization said in a report released today.
By some calculations, the Obama plan will help trim future budget gaps. But other figures show it'll only make things worse. The problem is that no one knows for sure right now, and that makes sensible spending choices ever harder to make.
With most U.S. hospitals and doctors' offices still mired in paper, new federal standards for electronic records seek to resolve this mess -- although they're not without controversy.
