Healthcare Strategic Management articles from January 2005

Healthcare Strategic Management archives from January 2005

Market memo: evidence-based experience management in health care.
January 1, 2005... Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is all the rage, with pay-for-performance systems providing the incentive and new information technologies such as computers and the Internet enabling it to be practiced more easily. But evidence is often short for...

Hospitals need better pricing strategies.
January 1, 2005... Hospitals' line item charges applied to the bills of self-insured (uninsured) patients are both much higher than what the institutions charge managed care organizations and what they are paid by Medicare and Medicaid, and they also vary by as...

Hospital CFOs ponder issues surrounding capital allocation in times of scarcity.(Strategic Notes)(Chief Financial Officer)
January 1, 2005... With capital availability shrinking and demand increasing, hospital financial officers must walk a fine line to keep priorities balanced. At the December forum of the Healthcare Financial Management Assn. (HFMA), CFOs from around the...

Hospitals should provide services to all to save private health system, professor advises group.(Strategic Notes)
January 1, 2005... The U.S. health care system is headed for disaster, in the form of either consumer rebellion leading to nationalization, or a country where only the very wealthy have access to care. But Leland Kaiser, Ph.D., has a solution. Let the...

Forum discusses using tiered hospital networks to reduce health care costs in insurance plans.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... The pros and cons of steering patients to lower-cost hospitals under so-called "tiered networks" was the topic of a forum Dec. 2-3 in Arlington, Va. The forum was sponsored by the AFL-CIO, Employer Purchasing Coalition and includes...

CMS analysis reveals growing share of health care spending by elderly, more youth uninsured.(Statistical Notes)
January 1, 2005... If there were any doubt that an aging population means higher health care costs, a new survey by CMS offers proof. The survey, reported in the December 2004 Health Care Financing Review, looked at national health spending statistics between...

Hospital visits on the increase, but length of stay continues to decline, HHS report shows.(Statistical Notes)(Health and Human Services)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Hospital use is up, and length of stay is down. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, part of the Dept. of Health and Human Services, reported that discharges nationwide were 37,804,021 in 2002, compared with 35,406,187 in 1997. ...

Surgeon general joins pharmacy group to warn patients against importation of pharmaceuticals.(Statistical Notes)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona in December came out against the importation of drugs from other countries. In a December 2004 statement, Carmona said "the risk of imported medicines being counterfeit is dangerously high, and puts American...

VA hospitals found best in overall care quality, but not every one measures up, reviews show.(Statistical Notes)(Veterans Affairs)
January 1, 2005... Dept. of Veterans Affairs hospitals received good news and bad news in December. A RAND Corp. study showed patients in VA hospitals preventive and chronic care than the rest of Americans. But at least one was found to have some quality...

Money worries continue to plague hospital CEOs during 2004, annual ACHE study finds.(American College of Healthcare Executives)
January 1, 2005... Between caring for growing numbers of uninsured patients and struggling to be reimbursed by government and insurance companies, hospital CEOs continue to put revenue shortfalls ahead of all other business problems as they begin 2005. In a...

Customer focus, technology improvements expected to top health care issues in 2005.(Database Notes)
January 1, 2005... Hospital executives will have to reckon with increasingly knowledgeable and demanding consumers, along with the need for increasing investment in information technology. Those are among the top issues facing the health care system,...

U.S. health care system still unprepared to deal with bioterrorism attack, according to report.(Database Notes)
January 1, 2005... Despite widespread publicity about the threat of terrorist attacks using biological agents, and the series of deaths from anthrax in 2001 and 2002, the U.S. has made little progress in protecting its citizens from bioterrorism. That is the...

Will portable hospital answer need for disaster response? Washington hospitals view model.(Database Notes)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... In Washington, D.C., emergency planners are hoping a portable hospital will take away some of the uncertainty about the city's ability to respond to another terrorist attack, especially one featuring biological weapons. Washington achieved...

Fate of health care may turn on events of 2004, from Bush election to flu vaccine shortage.(Database Notes)
January 1, 2005... Looking back at 2004, a New York-based health care consultant found eight major events that promise to shape health care in the future. In the year-end analysis issued by Kurt Salmon Associates, a landmark event was the re-election of...

Electronic commerce has now reached the point where supply chain managers can see benefits.
January 1, 2005... Electronic commerce is no longer a novelty in health care. Yet, it has not matured to the point where it is taken for granted, either. The next step, say industry experts, is for hospitals to document the savings in costs and resources from...

Rush promotional campaign was designed to promote physicians, nurses, research.
January 1, 2005... As 2004 wound to a close, so did the 14-month campaign by Rush University Medical Center, Chicago. Storandt Pann-Margolis, La Grange, Ill., (SPM) played a creative role in the campaign, which started in October 2003 and was designed to promote...

Identity theft case creates new HIPPA concerns for hospitals.(Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)
January 1, 2005... On November 5, 2004, health care worker Richard Gibson was sentenced to 16 months in federal prison for illegally obtaining several credit cards and using them to purchase more than $9,000 worth of items for personal use. But this was no...

United surgical partners grows with hospital, physician partners.(Surgery Centers)
January 1, 2005... Hospitals are losing surgical procedures to free-standing surgical centers, but a number of hospitals are capitalizing on the trend by taking a stake in their smaller, more profitable competitors. In 2004, United Surgical Partners...

Symbion grows into chain of 51 surgery centers in 20 states.
January 1, 2005... Symbion Inc., a Nashville-based surgery center chain that owns and operates 51 multi--specialty surgery centers in partnerships with hospitals and physicians in 21 states, is looking for same store growth of 5% to 8% in 2005. In addition, it...

Most hospitals stick with policies on post c-section c-sections.(Obstetrics)
January 1, 2005... Women hate c-sections. And they hate having more than one c-Section. But many obstetricians and hospitals insist that once a woman has had a C-section, she has to have c-sections for all subsequent deliveries. They say they have these...

Cleveland clinic, McDonald's dispute creates questions for hospitals.(Food Services)
January 1, 2005... "What happens when the famous Cleveland Clinic tries to boot the even more famous McDonald's fast food restaurant off its campus? World wide publicity is what happens first. Almost every paper, broadcaster and blogger in the country and...

Hospitals face new generation of medical staff challenges.
January 1, 2005... All hospital executives spend much of each day working to serve their medical staffs and keep em content, if not happy. In communities where physicians compete with hospitals, the hospitals have to develop effective competitive strategies and...