Articles
Quality & Patient Safety
Charleston Area Medical Center Creates Culture of Quality in Winning Baldrige Award
This year’s winner of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the health care category, Charleston (W.Va.) Area Medical Center Health System is the largest nongovernmental employer in its region, and is an important regional provider of Level I trauma care, neonatal and pediatric intensive care, kidney transplants and a host of other services
Delivery System Transformation, Governance Effectiveness, Strategic Planning, Leadership
Furthering Population Health Demands Diverse Governance
A board that guides the strategic direction of a health care system must have a keen sense of its business environment — the blend of market forces, financial realities and significant influences affecting every move the board makes. In the past, there had to be financial, legal and clinical acumen to guide decisions. That's not enough today, as providers reorient priorities toward population-level health.
Leveraging Technology
Hospitals Lag in Cybersecurity Exercises
In comparison, 79 percent of hospitals named to the 2015 Health Care’s Most Wired list — those organizations that report achieving certain benchmarks in an annual information technology survey — hold those exercises annually. But when it comes to risk analyses to identify compliance gaps and vulnerabilities, the difference between all hospital survey respondents and those named Most Wired is less stark: 35 percent of all hospitals and 42 percent of Most Wired hospitals perform risk analyses every six months.
Governance Effectiveness
Individuals can join Center for Healthcare Governance
The American Hospital Association’s Center for Healthcare Governance now offers individual memberships to elected or appointed board members in addition to its organizational memberships. Individual member benefits include access to the Center’s publications, website and online tools; discounted national symposia tuition; and a subscription to Trustee. www.americangovernance.com
Physician Workforce, Strategic Planning, Issues & Trends, Workforce
Demand for Psychiatrists Skyrockets in Past Year
Primary care physicians, followed by psychiatrists, topped a list of 20 most in-demand medical specialists, according to a report from physician search firm Merritt Hawkins. The firm tracked its physician and advanced practitioner recruiting assignments and found that it was retained to conduct more searches for psychiatrists in the past year than in any other period in its 27-year history.
Delivery System Transformation, Physician Workforce, Quality & Patient Safety, Strategic Planning, Workforce
Primary Care Docs Say Metrics Hurt Patient Care
Half of the nation’s primary care physicians say the increased use of quality-of-care metrics to assess provider performance is having a negative impact on patient care, according to a survey report from The Commonwealth Fund and the Kaiser Family Foundation. Twenty-two percent see quality metrics as having a positive impact on quality.
Similarly, 52 percent say that programs that impose financial penalties for unnecessary admissions or readmissions are having a negative effect on quality. Just 12 percent say such programs are having a positive effect.
Care Delivery, Quality & Patient Safety
JAMA Study: Costs and Inpatient Stays Decline for Medicare Beneficiaries
Mortality and hospitalization rates and inpatient spending for Medicare patients 65 and older declined between 1999 and 2013. A Journal of the American Medical Association study found that the annual death rate from all causes declined to 4.5 percent from 5.3 percent, and the number of hospitalizations in the last six months of life dropped to 103 from 131 per 100 deaths. Inpatient spending per fee-for-service beneficiary declined to $2,801 from $3,290.
Delivery System Transformation, Strategic Planning
Employers Plan Changes for Health Coverage
Many large employers plan to keep health care coverage cost increases to 5 percent for the third consecutive year by making plan changes, adopting consumer-directed health plans and expanding wellness initiatives, according to the National Business Group on Health.
Delivery System Transformation, Governance Effectiveness, Leadership, Strategic Planning, Succession Planning, Leadership, Issues & Trends
Succession Planning
Penny Wheeler, M.D., was barely into her tenure as CEO of Allina Health and fresh from a transition period earlier this year with retiring CEO Kenneth Paulus when the topic turned to who might replace her.
Care Delivery
NOVA Awards Recognize Community Health Improvement
Each year, the American Hospital Association honors hospital-led programs that improve community health with the AHA NOVA Award. Winners are recognized for looking beyond patients’ physical ailments, rooting out economic or social barriers to care, and collaborating with other community organizations.