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As a 30-plus-year practicing surgical services nurse, and now a clinical product planner, I've seen both sides of the healthcare sourcing process.

In March, Consumer Reports released new safety scores for 2,591 U.S. hospitals. The magazine is just one of a number of organizations that rates hospitals on safety.

Many hospitals are facing tough financial times, but for some, the finances just fall apart. What happens then?

For the second year in a row, Humana ranked first in overall performance among 148 payers, according to the 2014 PayerView Report. The report ranks health insurers according to specific measures of financial, administrative and transactional performance.

Hospitals of all sizes face the same challenges when it comes to collections. The tricky part of collections at smaller, community hospitals, however, is that everyone in a small community knows each other.

Over the last decade, Metro Health -- an integrated health system based in and around Grand Rapids, Mich. -- has been able to set itself apart from other community hospital systems in part by its ability to access and leverage capital.

$40 million, $100 million, $220 million, $300 million. These figures do not represent recent Powerball jackpots or the contracts of star athletes. They are the annual cost reduction targets that CFOs of major health systems have recently shared with me.

The increased dependence on non-physician providers raises important questions for hiring managers at healthcare organizations. How to best utilize non-physician providers? Which roles are ideal -- e.g., nurse practitioners or PAs? And what are the financial and operational benefits?

States, insurers and self-funded employers are facing mounting pressure to expand autism coverage, but some may be too slow for advocates.

The starting point for organizations pursuing value-based care models differ, but at the heart of these approaches are common factors that define success.