Articles
Operational Excellence, Physician Workforce, Strategic Planning, Issues & Trends, Workforce
Physicians Report Increase in Emergency Department Visits
Emergency physicians have noticed an increase in the volume of emergency department patients since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act on Jan. 1, 2014, according to a survey of American College of Emergency Physicians members. The poll, which sought to understand changes in ED patient volume and care since the requirement to have health insurance took effect, showed that 47 percent of emergency physicians saw a slight increase in the number of patients in the ED, while 28 percent saw a significant increase.
Quality & Patient Safety
IOM Proposes Priority Health Measures
Widespread application of a limited set of standardized measures could reduce the burden of unnecessary measurement of health and health care, and align the incentives and actions of several organizations at multiple levels, according to a report recently released by the Institute of Medicine.
Governance Effectiveness, Strategic Planning, Leadership, Issues & Trends
Leadership During Mergers and Acquisitions
Mergers and acquisitions are complex and daunting to accomplish, full of intricate legal and financial questions, business-benefit projections and formulas for extracting efficiencies of scale. All that due diligence generally is done by the time the organizations start to interact. And then trouble erupts.
Care Delivery, Strategic Planning, Issues & Trends
Where Hospitals Focus Population Health Efforts
Other organizations’ population health activities focus on individuals living in a specific geographic area or community (66 percent), those experiencing a certain disease or condition (57 percent) or individuals for whom the organization has a financial risk (46 percent), according to the 2015 American Hospital Association Population Health Survey performed in collaboration with the Public Health Institute.
Delivery System Transformation, Quality & Patient Safety, Strategic Planning
AHRQ: U.S. Health Care Access, Quality Improve, but Disparities Remain
U.S. health care access and quality are improving as demonstrated by a decrease in the rate of uninsured adults seen in the first half of 2014, according to a report recently released by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. However, the 2014 National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report found that disparities in access to health care remain.
Quality & Patient Safety
White House Creates Plan to Fight Resistant Bacteria
The White House recently issued a five-year plan to fight antibiotic- resistant bacteria.
Get Involved, Governance Effectiveness, Leadership, Strategic Planning, Issues & Trends
Hospital CEO Turnover Rate High, Shows Slight Decline in 2014
Hospitals continued to see a high rate of CEO turnover in 2014, with 4,501 hospitals reporting a rate of 18 percent, according to a report recently released by the American College of Healthcare Executives. Although lower than the 20 percent CEO turnover rate reported in 2013, last year’s rate is among the highest reported in the last 15 years, ACHE stated in a press release.
Governance Effectiveness
Board Appointments and Elections
Louise Michaux Gonzales was elected chair of the board of trustees of the University of Maryland Medical Center, Baltimore. Calvin G. Butler Jr., Harriet E. Cooperman, Carol L. Coughlin, Mark L. Joseph, Tim Regan and Deborah Trautman, R.N., were also elected to the board.
Financial Oversight, Strategic Planning, Issues & Trends
Hospital Financial Indicators
An operational indicator used by financial analysts, this ratio is a measure of how efficiently hospital assets are converted to revenue. The ratio’s numerator is net patient revenue plus total other income, and the denominator is total assets. A higher ratio is generally viewed as a positive indicator; however, it should not be viewed in isolation, but in combination with other financial data.
Legislation and Legislative Advocacy, Quality & Patient Safety, Leveraging Technology
Joint Commission: Leadership Key to Health IT Safety
Organizational leadership’s commitment to ensuring the safe use of health information technology is one of several actions proposed in a Joint Commission Sentinel Event Alert recently released to reduce patient harm caused by HIT-related events. After analyzing 3,375 sentinel events that occurred between Jan.