Healthcare Strategic Management articles from November 2002

Healthcare Strategic Management archives from November 2002

Market memo: opportunities for growth exist amid niche facilities. (Carve-Outs).
November 1, 2002... For many hospital administrators, the most perplexing and emotional challenge facing their health systems is a new competitor: specialized, free-standing facilities that carve-out lucrative services from full service hospitals. Why is this...

Achieving service excellence is hard work.(Book Review)
November 1, 2002... Hospitals are in the business of delivering high-quality care to sick, cranky patients and their anxious families as quickly and cost effectively as possible, and, hopefully, profitably. CEOs, medical staff leaders and their management...

LifePoint Hospitals acquires hospitals in Alabama and Dodge City, Kan. (Strategic Notes).(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... LifePoint Hospitals Inc. of Brentwood, Tenn., continues to add to its hospital holdings with three separate purchases in October. In October, the company announced it was acquiring the 99-bed Carraway Burdick-West Medical Center, located in...

Community Health continues acquisitions spree. (Strategic Notes).(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... Community Health Systems of Brentwood, Tenn., continues with its push to acquire hospital properties. In late September, the company announced it was acquiring seven hospitals from Methodist Healthcare of Memphis, Tenn. The Methodist...

MedCath opens hospital in Harlingen, Texas. (Strategic Notes).(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... MedCath Corp. of Charlotte, N.C., has opened its 112-bed Harlingen Medical Center in Texas, marking its ninth hospital nationwide. In addition to focusing on cardiovascular care, Harlingen Medical Center offers orthopedics, neurology,...

Venture groups back upstart surgery business; company hopes to begin making acquisitions. (Strategic Notes).
November 1, 2002... National Surgical Care Inc. of Chicago, a recently formed company that intends to acquire and develop ambulatory surgery centers and short-stay surgical hospitals in markets across the country, hopes to make a splash in the market after lining...

Philadelphia children's hospital completes part of $650 million expansion project. (Strategic Notes).(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in September marked a milestone with the topping off of its south tower, part of a $650 million expansion project. The 10-story, 332,000-square-foot south tower will nearly double the size of the...

Saint Clare's Hospital in Dover, N.J., opens new Women's Health Center. (Strategic Notes).(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... Saint Clare's Hospital in Dover, N.J., has formally opened its $1.4 million Women's Health Center. The center, located within the hospital, offers a variety of services including breast cancer screenings and diagnostics, bone density...

Health care profession `drives away' potential leaders, executive placement firm study finds. (Statistical Notes).
November 1, 2002... More than half of health care chief executive officers believe their profession "drives away" potential leaders from the health care industry, according to a new survey by Witt/Kieffer, an Oak Brook, Ill.-based executive search firm...

VHA study finds consumers are positioned to drive health care quality. (Statistical Notes).
November 1, 2002... The cost of health care is still important to consumers, but its importance is declining. Clinical quality, however, is a consumer issue that has almost doubled in importance in the last year, as indicated by recent research done by VHA Inc. of...

Spending on hospital care drives double-digit jump in health costs in 2001, study finds. (Statistical Notes).
November 1, 2002... Spending on health care jumped 10% in 2001, the first double-digit increase in more than a decade, according to a study by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). Results of the study were published in the September/October issue of...

HHS reimburses providers for Sept. 11 expenses. (Statistical Notes).(Department of Health and Human Services)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has announced that the Bush Administration is awarding $140 million in grants to reimburse hospitals, clinics and other health care organizations for costs they incurred while responding to the...

Joint Commission Resources releases database of good practices examples of survey compliance. (Database Notes).(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... Joint Commission Resources (JCR), a subsidiary of Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), has launched a database offering hospitals practical examples to meet accreditation requirements related to patient...

Study finds Americans use Internet for major health care decisions. (Database Notes).(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... Americans are increasingly relying on the Internet to help them make major health care decisions, according to a recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. According to the report, use of the Internet had played a crucial...

Study: failure to understand prescription drug information contributes to poor health outcomes. (Database Notes).(Health Literacy Initiative)
November 1, 2002... More than 75% of patients, physicians and pharmacists say the inability to understand information about prescription medications contributes to poor health outcomes, according to results of a recent Roper ASW survey. The survey also found...

UCLA researchers say they can identify seniors at risk for high medical care use. (Worth Reading).
November 1, 2002... Researchers from UCLA's division of geriatrics, RAND Corp. and the National Institute on Aging say they have developed an efficient and economical screening method to identify older persons at risk of high future health care use. The...

Advertising campaign connects docs, patients. (Worth Reading).(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... Many larger health care systems face problems associated with a disconnect between their physicians and patients. There are steps that can be taken to bridge such gaps, however. Alegent Health of Omaha, Neb., recently undertook a marketing...

Changing times require hospitals to reach out to minority markets. (Minority Markets).
November 1, 2002... Changing demographics make it imperative that health care providers tailor offerings for minority patients or risk losing a substantial portion of their market share. Minority patients are becoming an important market segment for a variety...

Tips for attracting, caring for minority patient populations. (Minority Markets).
November 1, 2002... Finding the time and resources to implement culturally competent care services can be difficult and frustrating for health care providers. While there is no formula for providing care to a multicultural clientele, knowing where to start helps....

Study finds collaborative efforts can reduce disparities in health status based on race. (Minority Markets).
November 1, 2002... Disparities in health status based on race and ethnicity can be reduced through local collaborative efforts, according to a demonstration project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Reducing health disparities is the No. 1 health...

NCQA report finds improvement in HMO quality, but problems persist. (HMO Quality).(National Committe for Quality Assurance report)
November 1, 2002... For the third year in a row, health care quality for millions of Americans improved substantially, despite broad public concerns over cost, the uninsured, patient safety and other system-wide ills, according to a recent National Committee for...