Apple Tree Goat Dairy Recalls Four Goat Cheeses Because of Possible Health Risk - FDA Safety Alerts & Drug Recalls

Apple Tree Goat Dairy of Richfield, PA is recalling Feta cheese aged 60 days lot #836, Gouda Cheese aged 60 days Lot#426 Pasturized chevre Lot #816, in 5 lb. or 8 oz. and French Herb Chevre Lot #736 in 8 oz. Or 5 lb. because it has the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems.

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Mei Shun Noodle, Inc. Issues Allergy Alert on Undeclared Shellfish and Soy in Rice Noodles - FDA Safety Alerts & Drug Recalls

Mei Shun Noodle, Inc. of Chicago, IL, is recalling its 12 ounce packages of 6毛FIVE branded Rice Noodles. During inspection by the Illinois Department of Public Health, we found that some of the product was mislabeled. The products may contain dried, salted shrimp and soy, which are not included on the label.

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Kellogg Company Recalls Limited Number of Kellogg’s® Eggo® Nutri-Grain® Whole Wheat Waffles Due to Potential Health Risk - FDA Safety Alerts & Drug Recalls

Kellogg Company is voluntarily recalling approximately 10,000 cases of Kellogg’s® Eggo® Nutri-Grain® Whole Wheat Waffles because they have the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. No other Eggo products are impacted by this recall.

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Ferrara Candy Issues Allergy Alert on Undeclared Peanuts and Wheat in Almond Supremes with a Best by Date of 4/22/2017 - FDA Safety Alerts & Drug Recalls

Ferrara Candy Company has initiated a voluntary recall of Brach’s® 5 ounce Almond Supremes with a best by date of 4/22/2017 after discovering that some Brach’s® Almond Supremes packages may include Brach’s® Bridge Mix, a product that contains peanuts and wheat. No other Ferrara Candy Company products are affected.

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Censea, Inc. Recalls Shrimp Product Because of Possible Health Risk - FDA Safety Alerts & Drug Recalls

Censea, Inc. is recalling its A-PAC 8/12 count Headless Shell on Black Tiger Shrimp, because it has the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella, an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis.

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FDA launches competition to spur innovative technologies to help reduce opioid overdose deaths - FDA Press Releases

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced the 2016 Naloxone App Competition, a public contest focused on developing innovative technologies to combat the rising epidemic of opioid overdose.

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Delivering coordinated, high quality care for patients - CMS Blog

By Dr. Patrick Conway, Acting Principal Deputy Administrator and Chief Medical Officer

In July 2016, CMS proposed new bundled payment models that continue the Administration’s progress to shift Medicare payments from rewarding quantity to rewarding quality by creating strong incentives for hospitals and clinicians to deliver better care to patients at a lower cost. These proposed new bundled payment models focus on heart attacks, heart bypass surgery, and hip fracture surgery. They would reward hospitals that work together with physicians and other providers to avoid complications, prevent hospital readmissions, and speed recovery. This proposal follows the implementation of the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement Model that begin earlier this year, which introduced bundled payments for certain hip and knee replacements.

Patients want the peace of mind that comes with knowing they will receive high quality, coordinated care from the minute they are admitted to the hospital through their recovery. Bundling payments for services that patients receive across a single episode of care – such as a heart bypass surgery or hip replacement – encourages better care coordination among hospitals, doctors, and other health care providers. Providers participating in bundled payments must work together when patients are in the hospital as well as after they are discharged, which should improve their recovery and avoid preventable complications and costs by keeping people healthy and at home.

Doctors, patient advocates, and health care experts across the country support these models because they have seen firsthand their potential for delivering better quality and more cost-effective care. Public and private-sector bundled payment models have already shown promise in improving patient outcomes while lowering costs, including for cardiac and orthopedic care. In Medicare, more than 1,400 providers are currently participating in bundles through the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement initiative. Early results are encouraging: orthopedic surgery bundles, in particular, have shown promising results on cost and quality in the first two years of the initiative. These models keep the patient at the center of care delivery and focus on well-coordinated, high quality care.

Today, CMS is releasing the second annual evaluation report for Models 2-4 of the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement initiative, which include both retrospective and prospective bundled payments that may or may not include the acute inpatient hospital stay for a given episode of care. This report describes the characteristics of the participants and includes quantitative results from the first year of the initiative. Future evaluation reports will have greater ability to detect changes in payment and quality due to larger sample sizes and the recent growth in participation of the initiative, which generally is not reflected in this report. Key highlights include:

• 11 out of the 15 clinical episode groups analyzed showed potential savings to Medicare. Future evaluation reports will have more data to analyze individual clinical episodes within these and additional groups;
• Orthopedic surgery under Model 2 hospitals showed statistically significant savings of $864 per episode while showing improved quality as indicated by beneficiary surveys. Beneficiaries who received their care at participating hospitals indicated that they had greater improvement after 90 days post-discharge in two mobility measures than beneficiaries treated at comparison hospitals; and
• Cardiovascular surgery episodes under Model 2 hospitals did not show any savings yet but quality of care was preserved. Over the next year, we will have significantly more data available, enabling us to better estimate effects on costs and quality.

While there is more work to be done, CMS continues to move forward to achieving the Administration’s goal to have 50 percent of traditional Medicare payments tied to alternative payment models by 2018. The 2016 goal of tying 30 percent of Medicare payments to alternative payment models was met eleven months ahead of schedule, and we are committed to keeping that momentum. Bundled payments – including the ongoing Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement Model – continue to be an integral part of transforming our health care system by creating innovative care delivery models that support hospitals, doctors, and other providers in their efforts to deliver better care for patients while spending taxpayer dollars more wisely.

To view the evaluation report, please visit the CMS Innovation Center website at: http://ift.tt/1SHmSQv.

Filed under: Uncategorized

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