From Finance to Quality: CDI Departments Expanding Their Reach
October 5, 2016
Touted for their ability to improve case-mix index and ultimately facility finances, clinical documentation improvement (CDI) programs now need to expand reviews for quality indicators related to hospital value-based purchasing and other CMS pay-for-performance programs—not just because it’s the right thing to do but because, with multiple healthcare reform measures in play, such efforts could mean the difference between keeping a facility open or closing its doors.
Defining and pursuing population health management is still largely an individualized undertaking. Most healthcare organizations say they have a strategy, and indeed they are taking on increased risk and deploying programs aimed at defined populations. According to the 2015 HealthLeaders Media Population Health Survey of 316 healthcare leaders, 41% are fully committed and underway with managing the overall health of a defined population, 28% are starting pilot programs, and 12% said they will pursue population health but haven't yet started. One of the chief challenges organizations face is straddling the worlds of population health and fee-for-service.
Download this free report to learn about the unique paths and experiences in population health management from leaders at USC, Phoenix Children's Hospital, Sentara Healthcare, and University Hospitals.
Making Cost Containment Stick in the New Healthcare Economy
June 1, 2016
As senior vice president of strategy, business development, and technology at Truman Medical Centers (TMC) in Kansas City, Missouri, Mitzi Cardenas is used to doing a lot with very little. In fact, this experience serves her and her colleagues well as they pursue strategic cost containment initiatives. “It’s challenging, but in some ways it is advantageous,” she says.
Because TMC is a safety net, its leaders have been forced to develop a sophisticated vision around cost reduction, using population health management and targeted metrics as the foundation for growth and change. One of the health system’s key strategies is including costcontainment measures in the annual budgeting process. “I've been in healthcare for a long time, and measures can work really well for a short period of time, but getting them to stick on an ongoing basis is challenging,” Cardenas says. To that end, a powerful group of TMC leaders meet monthly to set and hardwire cost-containment initiatives.
Hospitals are building innovative outsourcing relationships to address a variety of goals in 2016 and beyond, including cutting more costs, improving care quality, and improving care coordination and the patient experience. This article examines how advanced healthcare organizations are forming strategic outsourcing relationships in ED medicine, hospital medicine and anesthesiology.
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Top reasons healthcare organizations are outsourcing in 2016
Bringing targeted clinical expertise to Henry County Hospital in rural Ohio
What Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center looks for in an outsourcing partner
Telemedicine continues to be top of mind for healthcare leaders in 2016. A host of factors, including innovative technologies, value-based care, consumerism, and an increased focus on the patient experience, continue to fuel growth in telemedicine and mobile health programs. According to a 2016 report by Foley & Lardner, LLP, “the global telemedicine market will expand at a compound annual growth rate of 14.3 percent through 2020, eventually reaching $36.2 billion, as compared to $14.3 billion in 2014.”
Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health in Philadelphia are part of this trajectory. Leaders at the academic medical center, with five hospitals and 1,751 licensed acute care beds, acknowledge that they are on an aggressive path toward implementing a vast telemedicine platform, and they will spend roughly $20 million over the next several years to that end.
For decades, nurse executives have directed the largest segment of the workforce. Now, these savvy clinical leaders are using their catbird seat to help redesign the healthcare system. From overseeing bedside care and advanced education programs to helping roll out new delivery models, service lines, and technologies, nurse leaders are taking on increasingly challenging roles as they help drive much of the innovation taking place in healthcare.