On May 4, 2010, at 2:30 pm, the Senate federal workforce subcommittee will hold a hearing on work life programs for federal employees. On May 6, at 12 noon, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a business meeting. The Committee will be marking up the the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act (H.R. 626), but not the FEHBP prescription drug transparency and pricing bill (HR 4489) which cleared the subcommittee on March 24, 2010.

I subscribe to the AMA News. I ran across a couple of interesting articles in recent issues. The first discusses how patient safety and quality experts are hoping that PPACA delivers substantial improvements in healthcare.  You’ll find a helpful list of PPACA’s patient safety and quality measures. The second discusses a California Healthcare Foundation study titled Consumers and Health Information Technology: A National Survey.  The survey finds that “Although only 7% of adults currently use a [personal health record] PHR, the number is growing.” The AMA News notes “That survey also found that if patients are going to be pushed toward greater PHR adoption by anyone, it’s going to be by the health care system representatives they trust the most — their physicians.”

Following up on the mid-week update, I ran across this AP article on personalized medicine, which emphasizes that while progress is being made, this is a long term solution 

Finally, take a look at this AIS Health Plan Daily article  which discusses the adverse legal consequences that can befall health plans that fail to communicate adequately with providers and members in high risk situations — here a liver transplant.