Healthcare Strategic Management articles from February 2004

Healthcare Strategic Management archives from February 2004

Wellness: piecemeal or personalized?(Market Memo)
February 1, 2004... Wellness programs, aimed not at diagnosis/treatment of disease, but at positive changes in overall health and related quality of life, are growing dramatically in popularity, and represent what has been termed a trillion-dollar opportunity...

What is strategic management, planning?
February 1, 2004... What is strategic management? And what is strategic planning? Vision? Mission? Both management and planning are processes, not assignments or periodic events, and they are tied to an organization's vision and departmental missions. ...

Will financial rewards improve quality of care? Study by CMS, Premier aims to find out.(Strategic Notes)
February 1, 2004... In an unusual partnership between a government agency and a group purchasing organization, 278 hospitals have embarked on a test of how financial incentives can affect the quality of care. The hospitals are members of Premier, Oak Brook,...

Pennsylvania hospitals warned to vaccinate against diphtheria following death of man.(Strategic Notes)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... The death of a Pennsylvania man from diphtheria following his return from foreign travel led the Centers for Disease Control to warn hospitals of the continuing need for vaccination against the disease. According to the Jan. 9 issue of the...

PainCare Holdings acquires orthopedic clinic, adding 11,000 patients in southern Louisiana.(Strategic Notes)(Bone and Joint Surgical Clinic)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... PainCare Holdings, Orlando, Fla., has acquired Bone and Joint Surgical Clinic, Houma, La. The deal took effect Dec. 31, 2003. The clinic serves the southeastern region of Louisiana, and receives 11,000 patient visits per year. Based on its...

Report looks at the problems of the American health care system, and how to fix them.(Strategic Notes)
February 1, 2004... While the experts have been worrying about underutilization of hospital beds and a surplus of physicians as factors in the rise in health care costs, a hospital building boom was quietly taking place as communities saw population growth...

U.S. hospital expenses hit $462 billion in 2002, according to latest AHA statistical survey.(Statistical Notes)(American Hospital Association)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Just 20% of the nation's non-government hospitals are for profit, according to a survey by Health Forum, an affiliate of the American Hospital Assn. (AHA), Chicago. The AHA has released its report, Hospital Statistics, 2004 edition, based on...

Higher patient volume coincides with better outcome in study of low birth weight babies.(Statistical Notes)
February 1, 2004... What are the benchmarks of hospital quality? Risk-adjusted outcome records have been used in the past, but reliable data are hard to come by, industry experts say. Another measurement tool is patient volume for a particular illnesses or...

When consumers have a choice of hospital, quality record counts, according to survey.(Statistical Notes)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... New research indicates that many consumers do investigate a hospital's quality before deciding whether to use it. According to HealthGrades, Lakewood, Colo., 40% of consumers consider a hospital's quality ratings in making their hospital...

Hospitals finding ER treatment hard to code, leading to Medicare reimbursement problems.(Database Notes)(emergency room)
February 1, 2004... Confusion over Medicare codes for emergency room treatment are costing hospitals money, either from under-reimbursement or from findings of noncompliance, a study by American Hospital Directory (AHD), Louisville, Ky., showed. In 2000,...

Health care spending stands out in slumping economy, CMS economists report.(Database Notes)(Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services)
February 1, 2004... The U.S. health care system is approaching the breaking point, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and the rising cost of prescription drugs is only partly to blame. While the CMS cited data from 2001 in a...

Hospitals to get ID numbers savings expected from streamlining transaction processing.(Database Notes)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Under a regulation issued in January by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), every hospital that deals with the government will have an identification number to be used in electronic transmissions. Called the National...

Hospitals looking to information technology as best hope for cutting health care expenses.(Database Notes)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Hospital executives meeting in Washington in January agreed that the nation's health care system must cut costs to survive, and that investment in information technology can help it do that. The CEOs were joined by their counterparts from...

Catholic IDN leads the way in embracing new strategies for purchasing in the 21st century.(Worth Reading)
February 1, 2004... When Mercy Resource Management, Naperville, Ill., left its long-time group purchasing organization last summer, few heads turned. After all, weren't a lot of hospitals and integrated delivery networks leaving Premier Inc., Oak Brook, Ill., for...

Patient dissatisfaction with emergency room leads to new public education program.(Worth Reading)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Patient satisfaction scores are measured regularly by Baptist Memorial Health Care, Memphis, Tenn., and recently, the emergency room scores presented a challenge. Senior public relations manager Courtney Liebenrood said that for several...

Rural hospitals join forces to access services, recruit staff.(Rural Hospitals)
February 1, 2004... At Deaconess Billings Hospital, Billings, Mont., 15 beds, the concepts "small" and "rural" are relative. In this part of the nation, driving 50 miles to a medical checkup is no big deal, and in isolated, sparsely settled communities, 15 beds...

Investment in health care provides high return to society, economy.(Rural Hospitals)
February 1, 2004... The $462 billion that Americans spend on hospital services (see page 6) produce a high return on investment, according to a study, The Value of Investment in Health Care. The study was produced by Medtap International (www.medtap.com) for...