Operations
Medicare's accountable care organizations have gotten off to a mixed start, with hospital-led ACOs especially reporting financial challenges. By contrast, physician-led ACOs may have built-in advantages, and could be a new source of competition.
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?
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has announced the first group of prospective winners of its Health Care Innovation Awards. The winners could receive receive $2 million to $18 million each over three years for trying innovative care models.
Our weekly look at career moves in the healthcare finance sector. This issue highlights promotions, hires and fires for the week ending May 23, 2014.
The healthcare industry recognizes the need to reduce its impact on the environment, yet sustainability isn't always a high priority among the decision makers at individual U.S. hospitals. Here are some ideas to help your facility get started.
Hospital ownership of physician practices appears to lead to statistically and economically significant increases in hospital prices and spending, according to a recent study published in Health Affairs. But that doesn't mean providers should retreat from integration and tighter alignment.
Disasters, natural and man-made, threaten more than hospital property. With many healthcare information technology systems integrated and focused on patient care, the threat of an IT or communications shutdown can be both dangerous to patients and costly to the health system.
Hospitals confront extraordinary challenges in the aftermath of a natural disaster. These risks seem to have enlarged in recent years, and can shut down hospital operations, temporarily or entirely. Consequently, many hospitals have upgraded their business continuity planning.
Last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services published a final rule that reforms federal health policy regulations that CMS has identified as unnecessary, obsolete, or excessively burdensome on healthcare providers and suppliers. Here are some highlights.
Almost a third of all hospitalizations now treat diabetic patients, and cost more than average. Diabetic admissions may be a problem that regulators, ACOs and providers need to solve for the long-term.