Hospitals that mandate influenza vaccination among employees and have consequences for noncompliance have a higher increase in rate of vaccination than hospitals without consequences, according to a study in American Journal of Infection Control.

Many infection preventionists are not aware of or are not engaged in using electronic health records and health information exchange to report public health information, according to a study in American Journal of Infection Control.

Reducing medical errors is one of the challenges healthcare providers and medical technology companies focused on at the Jan. 13 patient safety summit held by the Patient Safety, Science & Technology Movement.

Healthgrades announced the top 20 cities with the lowest average risk-adjusted in-hospital mortality rates across 16 conditions and procedures based on 2005-to-2011 data in its report, "America's Best Hospitals 2013: Navigating Variability in Hospital Quality."

Healthgrades has announced its annual "America's Best Hospitals" 2013, which recognizes hospitals demonstrating clinical excellence over several years.

Including both commercial and Medicare accountable care organizations, there are 428 total organizations in 49 states as of January, according to a Health Affairs blog entry by David Muhlestein, an analyst with Leavitt Partners.

Just 32 percent of the nation's pre-med students plan to become primary care physicians after earning their medical degrees, according to a recent Kaplan Test Prep survey.

Effective March 1, Mercy, the 32-hospital system based in Chesterfield, Mo., and Hermann (Mo.) Area District Hospital will enhance physician collaboration to better treat critically ill patients in central Missouri.

Teaching hospitals in Illinois could face a reduction of medical students training in their facilities beginning in July if the state does not resolve delays in processing temporary licenses, according to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch report.

Hospital admission rates from the emergency department varied significantly among emergency physicians and hospitals in a single health system, according to a study in Annals of Emergency Medicine.