Healthcare Strategic Management articles from December 2001

Healthcare Strategic Management archives from December 2001

Market memo: heart hospitals should have physician equity.
December 1, 2001... One can argue that two facilities pioneered the freestanding physician equity heart hospital model "heart hospital." No other facilities before this time have literally consolidated cardiovascular services into an independent building with no...

Hospital experiences depend on many things.
December 1, 2001... What is your hospital's experience rating? Is it the same s your quality score? And how do the two scores correlate? These are relatively new questions for hospitals, but they actually address familiar issues such as guest and employee...

Baptist Memorial pilots Humana's patient safety and quality project.(Strategic Notes)
December 1, 2001... Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., is the pilot hospital for Humana Inc.'s patient safety and quality project. Through the project, Humana will monitor certain safety and quality goals already established at the hospital. These goals...

Physicians say the Internet is having big impact on their behavior; Internet's influence will increase.(Strategic Notes)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... Physicians are telling market researchers "that not only has the Internet already had a considerable impact on physician behavior, but they strongly suggest that the influence of the Internet is likely to increase," says a report by the Boston...

New consumer-driven health plan will compete with managed care and indemnity insurers.(Strategic Notes)
December 1, 2001... The Pacific Business Group on Health (PBGH) said that it will offer a new consumer-driven health care plan--the Breakthrough Plan--to its 44 member-companies. PBGH becomes the largest purchaser coalition in the country to offer a type of...

Chronic patients spend up to five times more for health care than those without chronic conditions.(Statistical Notes)
December 1, 2001... Individuals with chronic conditions spend up to five times more for health care than individuals without a chronic condition, according to the November/December issue of Health Affairs. An article, "Out-of-Pocket Medical Spending for Care of...

MedCath's heart hospitals lost less money in latest quarter; profitable in fiscal year.(Statistical Notes)
December 1, 2001... MedCath Corp., a national provider of cardiovascular services, reported a smaller loss of $2.8 million for its fourth fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2001, compared with a net loss of $4.5 million a year earlier. Revenues rose 9.7% to $92.9...

Chronic pain causes victims to quit their jobs; pain costs more than $100 billion a year.(Statistical Notes)
December 1, 2001... More than 25 percent of men and women who live with chronic pain report that this condition affected their decision to quit their job, according to the "Gender Attitudes Toward Chronic Pain" survey commissioned by Partners Against Pain[R] and...

Hospitals' margins in first half improved to 5.2% from 4.2% a year ago; lower 2nd half margins likely.(Statistical Notes)
December 1, 2001... U.S. hospitals regained some financial footing in the first two quarters of 2001, reporting an average profit margin of 5.2%, up from 4.2% for the same period last year, according to Solucient, Evanston, Ill. However, in tracking hospital...

Kaiser earns $198 million on revenues of $4.9 billion in the third quarter of 2001.(Statistical Notes)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc., Kaiser Foundation Hospitals (KFHP/H), and their subsidiaries reported net income of $198 million and operating income of $218 million on operating revenues of $4.9 billion for the third quarter of 2001. By...

Komen Breast Cancer Foundation launches expanded Web site for cancer victims.(Database Notes)
December 1, 2001... The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation launched an expanded version of its Web site, www.breastcancerinfo.com. The site features consumer-friendly fact sheets about a variety of breast cancer issues, as well as a search engine that...

Book on ethics for health care Web sites is published by URAC.(Database Notes)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... URAC, in partnership with the Internet Healthcare Coalition, released the publication The New Frontier: Exploring eHealth Ethics. The book compiles, for the first time, all the major ethical codes and guidelines for health Web sites. In...

Kaiser and American Diabetes Assn. apply new computer simulation model to diabetes.(Database Notes)
December 1, 2001... Three major health organizations--Kaiser Permanente, the American Diabetes Association and Bristol-Myers Squibb--said that they are joining forces to apply a powerful new computer simulation model to improve the care of diabetes patients. ...

How do patients experience your services, and how should they? 'Chief experience officer?'.(Worth Reading)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... Looking for a new marketing angle? Or does your institution need a new approach to patient centered care, guest relations, employee relations and internal collaboration? A group of consultants wants hospital executives to focus on making a...

Personal strategy: emotional intelligence and style determine the effectiveness of leaders.(Worth Reading)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... Two years of new research into what makes a leader, "... found that of all the elements affecting bottom-line performance, the importance of the leader's mood and its attendant behaviors are most surprising. That powerful pair set off a chain...

Uncertainty due to a lack of data leads to misuse, overuse, underuse of medical technology.(Worth Reading)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... Improving quality of care will be slow until there are better ways to disseminate data and information to individual physicians, according to "Hidden barriers to improvement in quality of care," by Barbara J. McNeil, M.D., Ph.D., in the Nov....

Ross Goldberg: ten top issues that hospitals will confront during 2002.(Predictions)
December 1, 2001... More than thirty-five years ago, one of our nation's leaders referred to the future as something which lies "beyond our vision but not completely beyond our control." Health care futurists continue to grapple with this notion, struggling to...

Contract research firms compete for pharmaceutical development projects.(Predictions)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... Contract research organizations (CROs) are a growing trend among the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors as these companies look to reduce the costs of drug development. However, there are tradeoffs between the size of a CRO and the...

Understanding new HIPAA privacy standards for hospitals and other providers.(HIPAA)
December 1, 2001... The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) was enacted by Congress in an attempt to bring "administrative simplification" to the health care industry. One aspect of HIPAA is the privacy rule, issued by the...

Special 2001 index issue.
December 1, 2001... This index to Health Care Strategic Management covers issues from January 2001 through December 2001. To order back issues or reprints, please call Health Care Strategic Management at 800-328-3211. Academic Medical Centers AMCs need to...