Steff Deschenes

To get better care for patients and lower costs, it's important to stitch together the experience of patients both while they're in the hospital and immediately afterwards.

At the same time the government is encouraging healthcare providers, doctors and insurance companies to digitize healthcare information, the landscape for attacking that info is increasing dramatically. One industry insider provides seven tips for how to prevent a data breach.

In light of the recent Readmissions Reduction Program under the Affordable Care Act, numerous hospitals and medical industry experts are examining new approaches that will decrease the rate of hospital readmissions. "The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates $15 billion is spent annually on readmissions for Medicare patients, with $12 billion of that amount being preventable," said Jeff Huber.

With medication shortages, patient safety and accurate dosing creating daily challenges, some providers have found financial benefits in pharmacy automation solutions.

Reimbursement models are used by payers, hospitals, physicians and ancillary care providers to furnish data to healthcare payment contract negotiations. The many changes taking place across the healthcare landscape are forcing payers and providers dependent upon these models to deal with new challenges.

With over 47 million residents in the U.S. whose primary language isn't English it stands to reason that all hospitals and healthcare clinics will encounter multilingual patients. Increasing state and federal requirements for communicating with limited English speakers have challenged hospital administrators to find cost-effective solutions.

While hospitals historically have focused on driving down costs by making improvements in their revenue cycle, nurse productivity and supply chain management efficiency, one area that hasn't received as much attention is the costs associated with the number of assets hospitals own and maintain, said John McCarthy, general manager of asset management professional services at GE Healthcare. McCarthy shares four initiatives to help healthcare organizations reduce overall inventory and drive down costs.

Accountable care organizations are complicated, but the ins and outs of the care model have been discussed long enough. Healthcare organizations are now at a point where they have to focus on specific areas of ACOs to reduce cost and benefit patients say two healthcare consultants.

Transitions in care can have significant financial impact on healthcare organizations. As technology improves and business paradigms shift, organizations have an opportunity to reduce costs and improve care quality. However, challenges await: it's not easy to make improvements in care transitions.

Relationships between healthcare organizations and physicians are a growing trend within the industry as more doctors become employees of hospitals. Building healthy working relationships between the two factions is important.