Healthcare Strategic Management articles from February 2000

Healthcare Strategic Management archives from February 2000

Market memo: hospitals should look at radiology as profit center. (Radiology As A Profit Center).
February 1, 2000... When hospitals and health systems talk about profit centers and subsidiaries, they usually think of cardiology, orthopedics and other specialty services. But radiology is a lucrative opportunity overlooked by most organizations, according to...

What's your flu season strategy for 2001?
February 1, 2000... Got a flu strategy for 2001? It is time to think about next year's flu season. This winter's flu epidemic is showing a lot of otherwise healthy Americans and their families how important hospitals and surplus hospital beds are to their...

Cancer trial support helps research hospitals.
February 1, 2000... Research and teaching hospitals may find it is easier to recruit patients for clinical trials if the nation's insurers follow the examples of a coalition of New Jersey health maintenance organizations and Aetna U.S. Healthcare. The New...

Despite doing things right, Mercy Hospital starves from poor reimbursements. (Strategic Notes).
February 1, 2000... "We've done everything right," Mercy Health Services spokesman Steve Shivinsky said of the system's 77-year-old Mercy Hospital in Detroit. "National consultants have come in and said we were operating as efficiently as we could." But on March...

Only 13 hospitals make the `top hospital' lists of both NRC, HCIA. (Strategic Notes).
February 1, 2000... A number of organizations are announcing "top hospital" lists, but the biggest surprise may be how much difference exists among the various lists. For example, in lists recently release by HCIA (100 Top Hospitals[TM]) and National Research...

Telemedicine will grow 40% annually, help health systems create `centers of excellence'. (Strategic Notes).
February 1, 2000... Health care's ability to prevent, diagnose and treat disease has improved considerably during the 20th Century, but our means of care delivery has not. Telemedicine will make a big difference in changing this, and, as a result, will grow 40%...

Hospitals need to act to reduce bad debt writeoff, which exceeds profit by 3-1. (Statistical Notes).
February 1, 2000... Too many hospitals are not taking steps to reduce their bad debt writeoffs, which totaled $30 billion nationwide, exceeding hospital profits by 3-1 in 1998, according to David Zimmerman of Zimmerman & Associates, a Milwaukee health care...

More small group practices, fewer large group practices have capitation revenue. (Statistical Notes).
February 1, 2000... More small physician group practices were deriving revenue from capitation, while fewer large group practices had capitation revenues in 1997, compared with 1996, according to data in the newly released Hoechst Marion Roussel Managed Care...

Capitation, gatekeeper role create more PCP concern about scope of care expected. (Statistical Notes).
February 1, 2000... While health systems in other nations generally make less use of physician specialists and more use of primary care physicians (PCPs) than does the U.S. health care system, a new study released by the Center for Studying Health System Change...

Hospital, home health, assisted living stocks down, e-commerce, lab stocks up in 1999. (Statistical Notes).
February 1, 2000... Health care stock performance varied wildly in 1999, with assisted living, home health, hospital and practice management stocks all showing major declines while e-commerce and laboratory services both showed healthy increases, according to a...

Hospitals may be able to reduce infection rates by using `immune-enhancing therapy'. (Statistical Notes).
February 1, 2000... Hospitals may be able to reduce patients' chances of acquiring infection while hospitalized--and reduce treatment costs--by using immune-enhancing therapy or immunonutrition (IMN), according to results of a study recently published in Critical...

Healtheon continues to consolidate clout, forges alliance with News Corp. (Database Notes).
February 1, 2000... Healtheon/WebMD, which has declared a goal of becoming the top portal for all health care Internet services, continues to consolidate its position toward that goal. In what was perhaps its biggest move, Healtheon/WebMD announced a partnership...

Delta Group offers national directory of outcomes with data from 3,500 hospitals. (Database Notes).
February 1, 2000... A new database that includes clinical and financial outcomes in 16 categories with data for 3,500 general, acute, and non-federal U.S. hospitals is now available from The Delta Group, a Greenville, S.C., health care informational services and...

Stock dealer says drkoop.com positioned to be `long-term leader in health care niche'. (Database Notes).
February 1, 2000... Online health information giant drkoop.com has followed in the steps of Yahoo! as a dominant media company to ensure that it will be a long-term leader in the online health care niche, according to stock broker-dealer Robinson-Humphrey, a...

Tenet, Columbia/HCA invest in online procurement companies. (Online Procurement).
February 1, 2000... Two of the nation's largest hospital chains--Columbia/HCA and Tenet Healthcare Corp.--are investing in online procurement companies that not only will save their own hospitals money but will likely produce new revenue streams for both as they...

Follow `best practices' to improve governance. (Online Procurement).
February 1, 2000... Many hospitals, health systems and physician groups are governed less effectively than they should be, with not-for-profit hospitals particularly problematic, but these organizations can use governance "best practices" to improve their board...

The ultimate quality indicator. (Quality Indicators).
February 1, 2000... Quality indicators and their publication are some of the fastest growing products in American commerce, and the health care industry seems to offer an its share. Federal and state governments publish report cards such as Consumer...

LifePoint continues on successful path by improving services, recruiting docs. (Quality Indicators).
February 1, 2000... LifePoint Hospitals Inc., a May 1999 spin-off of 23 rural hospitals from the Columbia/HCA system, is continuing its strategy of consolidating good relationships with the communities it serves by recruiting more physicians and improving...

When there's so much technology available, how does a hospital decide what to buy? (Managing Technology Needs).
February 1, 2000... With an exploding availability of new medical equipment, a dire need to continue improving information technology, and constant demands from physician specialists for the latest gadgetry in their field, what's a hospital administrator to do...

Taking care of the hospital's caregivers. (Employee Satisfaction).
February 1, 2000... The wave of cost cutting that has engulfed hospitals nationwide in recent years has led to new ways of doing business, new methods of management and new responsibilities for traditional roles. Unfortunately, it also has resulted in...

Hospitals `too slow' to read deteriorating finances, new EY `crisis' partner says. (Hospital Margins).
February 1, 2000... Many previously healthy hospital systems that once enjoyed "A" credit ratings are now "burning through their cash at a fairly prodigious rate." And too many of them are reacting too slowly to their deteriorating financial performance, according...