Operational Excellence
Snapshot
A series of high-profile breaches underscored the vulnerability of online records and the ability of cyber-criminals to quickly adapt their tactics. Providers and vendors are intensifying efforts to protect data from prying eyes.
Health care organizations face a great deal of regulatory risk in physician-hospital contracts, billing issues, quality and privacy. For physician-hospital contracts, the laws, enacted to discourage fraud, require complex contracts along with a high level of documentation. Failing to follow the…
The U.S. health care field is moving in a new direction — toward population health. The alignment of expanded access to care with the adoption of value-based reimbursement models has primed health care for unprecedented transformation. Succeeding in this new environment…
Health care governance education transformed immeasurably for the better during my 36-year career with the Arkansas Hospital Association. Almost four decades ago, board members were chosen for their prominence in the community. They met and enjoyed a nice lunch or dinner on the third Thursday of…
Health care must become more diverse in its leadership, governance and staff, and it must work hard to eliminate disparities in care. Here’s why:
Changing America:
• Half of all children in the U.S. will be nonwhite by 2020
• The majority of the population will be nonwhite by 2044
Snapshot The dashboard is a quick, comprehensive way to keep trustees informed on hospital performance. But don’t neglect to update it as care and payment models change. Board members who stick with the status quo and allow their dashboards to ossify risk missing the…
Florida's Lee Memorial Health System is using several strategies to connect emergency department patients with mental health and/or substance abuse problems to the outpatient care they need.
The two other most common payment models are Medicaid contracts with states or through a Medicaid health plan (60 percent) and direct contractual relationships with employers (24 percent), according to the American Hospital Association’s 2014 Survey of Care Systems and Payment…
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…
Boards have a keen interest in quality, and they are helping their hospitals and systems to implement a variety of improvement strategies. One particularly effective tactic is building successful partnerships with patients and families by including patient and family advisers. A new guide from the…