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2024 OPPS Proposed Rule

CCMS recently released the CY 2024 Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) Proposed Rule, which included proposals for the Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting Program (OQR) Program.For the full text of the rule, see the Federal Register.

SQL database icon

Nonclustered Indexes in Data Repository

What are indexes? Simply put, indexes in a SQL Server database are structures that speed up data access from tables and views. There are two types of indexes: clustered and nonclustered. Since any database table can only have a single primary key (therefore, a single clustered index), nonclustered indexes are what we as developers and analysts can optionally use to improve query performance. 

External Links in MEDITECH

For many people in a hospital environment, using a PC for most of the day means navigating through MEDITECH applications and menus as part of the usual routine. Inevitably however, none of us can do our job without a browser and the Internet. Fortunately for most MEDITECH users (sorry for those of you still using MAGIC), there’s a nifty utility built into MEDITECH that can be custom configured to make web URLs available right from your menu: External Links.

Emergency Preparedness in Healthcare

When your EHR is no longer available to retrieve the data that allows your clinicians to provide the best and safest care for your patients, what do you do?  We have become so dependent at having data at our fingertips that when it stops working or we have to wait for it, we grow impatient, it creates chaos, and we find other avenues to retrieve the data. Quality of care and safety for our patients is the number one priority in healthcare. 

2024 IPPS Proposed Rule

CMS recently published the FY 2024 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) Proposed Rule which includes several proposed changes to the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program and Medicare Promoting Interoperability (PI) Program for eligible hospitals (EHs) and critical access hospitals (CAHs). For the full text of the rule, see the Federal Register.

2024 IPF PPS Proposed Rule

CMS recently published the FY 2024 Inpatient Psychiatric Facilities Prospective Payment System (IPF PPS) Proposed Rule which proposed changes to the Inpatient Psychiatric Facility Quality Reporting (IPFQR) program. All IPFs, which include psychiatric hospitals and psychiatric units of an acute care hospital or critical access hospital, paid under the IPF PPS must meet IPFQR reporting requirements. For the full text of the proposed rule, see the Federal Register.

New Requirements to Reduce Health Care Disparities

Effective January 1, 2023, new and revised requirements to reduce health care disparities will apply to organizations in the Joint Commission’s ambulatory health care, behavioral health care and human services, critical access hospitals, and hospital accreditation programs. 

Palliative Care vs. Hospice Care

What are the differences between Hospice and Palliative care?
Sometimes the lines can be a bit blurred due to the similarities between the two. However, there are some distinct differences between them accordingn to definitions from the CMS. 
Power BI blog

Data Models in Power BI

In our previous Power BI blogs, we’ve introduced the Power BI platform and described why it’s such a great tool for developing custom business and clinical analytics reports for MEDITECH Data Repository. In this blog, we’ll discuss a vitally important concept at the heart of all Power BI report development: the data model.

Case Study: Downtime Defender

Downtime Defender is Acmeware's downtime reporting solution for the MEDITECH EHR. To learn more, read the case study from Anderson Hospital, who use Downtime Defender as their continuity of care solution. 

2023 OPPS Final Rule

CMS recently released the CY 2023 OPPS Final Rule, which included updates to the Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting Program (OQR) Program. For the full text of the rule, see the Federal Register.

2023 QPP Final Rule

CMS recently published the CY 2023 Quality Payment Program (QPP) Final Rule which included numerous updates to MIPS Value Pathways (MVPs) and Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). For the full text of the rule, see the Federal Register.