Strategic Planning
When it comes to using business intelligence tools, most medical practices have yet to graduate kindergarten. But a closer look at these BI systems suggests it's time to start using them to define trends in patient population and improve operational and clinical performance.
The decision by lawmakers to delay implementation of ICD-10 by a year will give hospitals extra time to get ready for the transition, but will have a negative financial impact.
Healthcare providers are good at collecting data, but are they using it to make good clinical and financial decisions?
In a recent report, MedPAC identified the common traits of the nation's poorly-performing hospitals. These are traits that have a big impact on hospital financial performance and should be understood by all hospitals -- even if they aren’t performing poorly currently.
With a new study showing both inpatient reductions and specialty care increases linked to high-risk medical home patients, health systems have more evidence to buy into the PCMH model as part of their clinical and financial improvement strategies.
Having IT is a necessity for hospitals, but for many, having an IT team to support that technology is a luxury. Here are some tips from experts on creating an IT team on a budget.
Entrepreneurial doctors looking for an alternative to hospital employment and solo practice and seeking increased business opportunities are turning to an emerging option - the mega-group.
The quality of a hospital or health system is usually linked to patient outcomes, not to administrative or financial efficacy. But smooth interactions between patients and the hospital business office should also be viewed as critical to an organization's quality, says one CFO.
Hospitals are just beginning to catch on to the promise of integrated data analytics to manage patient population health and measure treatment outcomes. These benefits not only assist the transition toward patient-focused care, they're helping healthcare institutions reduce associated costs.
It's the rare hospital C-suite executive who doesn't worry about the federally-mandated financial penalties that can result from not reining in avoidable 30-day readmissions. Several potentially useful solutions to this costly problem have sprung up recently.