Healthcare Strategic Management articles from August 2006

Healthcare Strategic Management archives from August 2006

Price packaging and transparency: get ready for government mandates, consumer demand.(Market memo)
August 1, 2006... In February, an episode of the television program 60 Minutes devoted an entire segment to healthcare pricing. It featured consumer advocates, senators, and everyday people caught in the quagmire of hospital pricing. The hospital industry...

Palliative care gains support in medical community.(Strategic notes)
August 1, 2006... There is a growing movement in U.S. hospitals to replace arrays of tests and interventions with deeper consideration of what the patient really needs. If that sounds radical, it is. Known as palliative care, the new concept places...

Childrens Los Angeles beats fund goal for earthquake-proof facility.(Strategic notes)(Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... The Childrens Hospital Los Angeles Board of Trustees has raised $556.1 million in private donations to build a new 460,000-sq.-ft., 280-bed facility designed to meet the state of California's tightened earthquake protection regulations. ...

Specialty hospitals high on CMS agenda.(rules for hospitals)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is asking hospitals for help in crafting policy on the regulation of specialty hospitals. In May, CMS sent an interim report to Congress regarding the specialty hospital provision in the...

Communication necessary for effective disaster response.(measure the level of emergency preparedness planning)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... The best strategy for disaster-response planning is to build a strong communication system in the community; only then will local expertise and service get to where residents need them, concludes a Joint Commission of Accreditation of...

New tactics help VHA members fight blood stream.(risk factors of blood stream infections )
August 1, 2006... VHA, Inc., the Irving, TX-based alliance of 1,400 hospitals, is taking aim at blood stream infections (BSI) as part of its clinical improvement program. Hospitalized patients and people with complicated illnesses (e.g., cancer or kidney...

Hospitals that listen, keep patients informed, get more referrals.(patient satisfactions)
August 1, 2006... The two factors that most influence a patient's decision about whether to recommend their hospital to others are how the staff responded to their concerns during their hospital stay and how much of an effort the staff made to include them in...

Hospital price index up in May, BLS reports.(Statistical notes)(Bureau of Labor Statistics )(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... The prices that hospitals charge to customers increased by 0.2% in May, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report released in June. Overall charges in May were 4.3% higher than a year ago. Prices at general medical and surgical...

Insurance coverage varies widely; hospital visits are up.(Statistical notes)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... More than 14% of adult Americans did not have health insurance in 2005, and nearly 9% of children were without insurance. Meanwhile, hospital visits and length of stay may be trending back up, but for different procedures. The National...

Preparedness funds will focus on communities, hospitals.(Research notes)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... Hospitals will benefit from the latest round of funding from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to improve disaster response at the local level. HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt on June 7 released $1.2 billion to states,...

Patient involvement, costly technology challenge health execs.(Research notes)
August 1, 2006... Healthcare executives cite growing consumerism and new technology as their greatest concerns in 2006, according to a survey released in June by GE Healthcare Financial Services in Chicago, a division of the electric products giant General...

JCAHO still the only one, as CMS rejects rival's application.(Research notes)
August 1, 2006... A Cincinnati consulting firm has lost its bid to join the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) as an authorized hospital accreditation agency. In June, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)...

Hospitals will have to provide flu vaccinations to staff: JCAHO.(Research notes)
August 1, 2006... The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) announced in June that beginning in January 2007, it would require accredited hospitals and other healthcare organizations to offer influenza vaccinations on-site to...

Specialty designation will help hospitals lure cardiac patients.(facilities of hospitals)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... A pair of Colorado hospitals in July won designation as premium cardiac specialty centers from the Minneapolis-based insurance company UnitedHealthcare. The Medical Center of Aurora, 372 beds, and Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center in...

Those who need hospitals also need hospitalists, trend indicates.(economic aspects of Hospitals)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... Hospitals are finding that they can save money, improve treatment efficiency, and raise patient satisfaction levels by joining the growing trend of bringing hospitalists on staff. In August, the movement will reach Wyoming when United...

Communities to get help managing chronic conditions elderly.(statistics of chronic conditions)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... A new public-private partnership will provide funding to help older Americans deal with chronic conditions. On July 5, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a $15 million grant in collaboration with The Atlantic...

Surgeons must refine techniques to account for obese patients.(risk factors of obese patients)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... Hospitals are seeing increasing numbers of obese patients, requiring larger beds and equipment and special lifting techniques. Now, surgeons are finding that they need to develop new techniques to perform procedures on larger patients. The...

There are risks involved when doctors can't or won't treat patients.(Worth reading)
August 1, 2006... What to do when a physician in a healthcare organization decides to no longer treat smokers, alcoholics, teenage girls at risk for pregnancy, or other patient populations? The answer is difficult, especially if the physician does not work in a...

Anesthetic ascension.(usage of Central nervous system agents)
August 1, 2006... Historically, anesthesiologists have been viewed merely as service providers to a hospital's biggest moneymaker: surgeons. Increasingly, however, hospital leaders are looking to anesthesiologists to help improve the facility's financial...

The nursing dilemma.(practice of registered nurses)
August 1, 2006... Hospital executives try to act upon evidence that boosting nursing-staff ratios is beneficial to patients, providers, and nurses alike, but continue to struggle to control costs while doing so. Leaders at the Richmond-based Virginia...

Encourage desired physician behavior, improve productivity through performance measures.(practice of physicians)
August 1, 2006... Before you can develop a pay plan that rewards physicians for their productivity, you must first determine the best way to measure performance. Rather than just figuring out which behaviors to measure and how to gauge them, also consider which...

Learning from market leaders: questions to ask and rules to follow.(Worth reading)(Company overview)
August 1, 2006... Successful companies achieve and sustain their dominant position by delivering "extraordinary levels of distinctive value" to carefully selected customer groups every day, writes Hindin, president of Hindin Healthcare Advisors, LLC, a...

Translation from afar.(services of medical personnel)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... A new company offers medical personnel a 24/7 wireless communications center, with access to interpreters of 180 different languages. The Language Access Network's centralized call center is in Columbus, OH, where the system began as an...

Clearing up common HCQIA misconceptions.(Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986)
August 1, 2006... Even after 20 years, the federal Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 (HCQIA) is a source of consternation among credentialing and medical staff professionals. A large number of preventable errors and an increased number of corporate...

Hospitals improve communication, efficiency, and patient safety with hands-free WiFi device.(evaluation of WiFi device)
August 1, 2006... Evidence is growing that hospitals can significantly improve patient safety, reduce their liability, and improve communication by adopting appropriate information technology (IT). As the experience of hospitals that have integrated their...