CEO gets patients' view of complicated healthcare system
by Lynn McVey
For this month's blog post, I planned to continue my theme of expensive variations in healthcare management, particularly the variation in executive salaries between for-profit and nonprofit facilities.
Conservative estimates demonstrate the median for-profit CEO salary is around $300,000, while the median nonprofit CEO salary ranges around $600,000. Setting the national standard at the for-profit median could mean a $1.5 billion drop in healthcare spending. I now join the ranks of those writers who recently called this variation the "800-pound gorilla."
However, a personal journey I took throughout our ...
Source: hospital impact - March 2, 2014 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
Empathy essential to provider-patient relationship
by Darlene A. Cunha
Patient care is more than healing--it's building a connection that encompasses mind, body and soul.
When dealing with patients and families coping with illness, empathy is one of the greatest interventions a caregiver can bring forth. Trying to understand another's experience requires effort and intention.
People often equate empathy with sympathy. Sympathy however, is an awareness of another person's situation and is almost an automatic response--such as, "That's so terrible, I sympathize with you." Sympathy is important and is part of what humanizes a caregiver, but empathy is essential to a succes...
Source: hospital impact - March 2, 2014 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
It's time for a structured systems approach to delivering care
by Gary S. Kaplan
The cost of healthcare remains a central theme no matter where you go in our nation, and rightly so. The annual U.S. healthcare expenditure tops nearly $3 trillion, representing approximately 18 percent of the gross domestic product. That equals about $1 out of every $5 spent.
If we trimmed the cost of healthcare by one-third--which is the amount attributed to waste and inefficiency--imagine how much money we could invest in public education, business development and infrastructure in our communities.
Higher cost is not a proxy for higher quality. The United States is below average for life expectancy ...
Source: hospital impact - January 2, 2014 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
Healthcare innovation lessons from the barbershop
by Thomas Dahlborg
Not long ago I sat around a dinner table with brilliant individuals from all different work sectors coming together to discuss opportunities to improve the healthcare system and the health of our communities.
Much of our discussion focused on the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) and government intervention(s) to improve upon this concept. We shared lots of interesting perspectives, best practices, lessons learned, impacts and lack of impacts of efforts in this area, and in some cases, disagreements as to where we go from here.
The patient-centered medical home concept has always fascinated me (hav...
Source: hospital impact - January 2, 2014 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
Yet 5 healthcare iPad apps that could arrive before Christmas
by Ron Shinkman, FierceHealthFinance
I don't own an iPad, so I rarely poke around the Apple app store to see what is new and exciting. The only exception is the last few weeks of the year, when I seek out the healthcare-related apps I would like to see arrive before the big holidays. The absolutely essential apps listed below have yet to show up, but with seven more shopping days before Christmas, you never know:
1. iCharge, Master!
Price: It really depends. But we don't think it's important to begin with.
Details: Tired of those pesky journalists asking for your price lists and wondering why your hospital is charging...
Source: hospital impact - December 21, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
The hospital experience is the marketing
by Anthony Cirillo
At a meeting of the Healthcare Planning and Marketing Society of New Jersey, I spoke about the intersection of patient experience and marketing and why they are tied at the hip. When all is said and done, word of mouth (WOM) is your most important marketing tool.
"In many cases, WOM isn't actually "marketing" at all. It's great customer service that earns customer respect," according to Andy Sernovitz, author of "Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking."
Change customer to patient, or better yet "person," and respect to loyalty and you have the essence of the connection. The e...
Source: hospital impact - December 21, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
Develop caring moments for patients
by Scott Kashman and Joan M. Odorizzi
As we go about doing our particular work each day, it is important to create personal and caring moments for our patients and each other. These moments are part of your daily or weekly work.
In a "caring moment" you would intentionally choose words and actions that send a message to another and enhance their well-being. In other words, an employee can give a patient a warm face cloth before eating, and that in itself is a good thing.
You can create caring moments by talking with the patient and sharing why you are doing so. Tell them you are doing this especially for them to help p...
Source: hospital impact - December 19, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
5 healthcare trends to look out for in 2014
by Kent Bottles
While my list of top five trends for hospital leaders to watch in 2014 cannot compete with the Pantone Color Institute's prediction that Radiant Orchid will be next year's color of the year, these healthcare trends could spell the difference between success and failure for your healthcare organization.
1. "It's the Prices Stupid"
The above heading is the title of a 10-year-old article that points out higher healthcare spending and lower use of services results in much higher American prices than in other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries.
This year, Steven Brill's Time...
Source: hospital impact - December 19, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
The 5 best comedy clips about the Affordable Care Act
by Zack Budryk, FierceHealthcare
Although there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel, it's been a rough couple of months for the Affordable Care Act, between ongoing woes for the Healthcare.gov website and a wave of unforeseen insurance cancellations.
As is often the case, though, what's bad for politicians is great for humor. FierceHealthcare has found five of the best clips about the Affordable Care Act rollout, from TV and online sources. >> Click here and read the full special report. (Source: hospital impact)
Source: hospital impact - December 12, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
Keep it personal to engage employees, improve care
by Tom Salerno
A hospital is the ultimate service sector business, where it's all about people taking care of people. The primary role of a hospital president is to engage employees in the mutual goal of providing excellent patient-centered care. My job, in 10 words or fewer: engage and encourage the people who take care of people.
Engagement is a state of mind where people have a collective understanding. Nurses, radiology technicians, environmental services technicians, admissions representatives, social workers and others are interconnected in service to our patients. We look to one another every day to renew our comm...
Source: hospital impact - December 12, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
It takes a village to bring healthcare from good to great
by Lynn McVey
"Congress is an evidence-free zone," Hillary Clinton joked at the recent Press Ganey conference. "We need more data and less suffering," she added on a serious note. I had arrived an hour early to get on line to listen to her speak. The next day, I did the same for Atul Gawande, M.D. Regarding healthcare reform, these two were on my own personal Mount Rushmore.
My life passion is disrupting healthcare using evidence-based practices to uncover expensive operational variations. I have been totally disgusted by some of the variations I've discovered over the years. The most repulsive waste was the hospital wh...
Source: hospital impact - December 12, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
A role for drones in healthcare
by Jeremy Tucker
Drone use for commercial purposes has gotten much press of late due to Amazon announcing it intends to use drones to deliver packages to customers. This is a very intriguing and transformational idea with many intended and unintended consequences.
The future use of drones in healthcare also is very thought provoking. How can the industry best use this technology to improve safety and care delivery? Well for starters, drones already have been trialed to deliver food aid and medical supplies to areas hit by disaster, such as Haiti, by a startup called Matternet.
The rapid delivery of vaccines, medicati...
Source: hospital impact - December 12, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
More unintended consequences of healthcare reform
Conclusion
The Affordable Care Act was created to enhance quality and access, lower cost, secure coverage for the un or under insured, extend the life of Medicare, and prohibit denial of coverage based upon pre-existing conditions. The law of unintended consequences has proven once again that intent does not equal impact and that healthcare leaders will need to continue to innovate their healthcare systems on the ground to ensure they can respond to economic and quality exigencies in a responsive and adaptive way while the private and public sectors seek better tools to guide the necessary changes that must occur to creat...
Source: hospital impact - December 5, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
Meet the hierarchy of patient needs to improve experience
by Doug Della Pietra
Patient experience isn't only about attempting to wow and delight patients and their families.
In a recent phone conversation, a long-distance friend of mine--I'll call her "Debbie"--described her father's hospitalization. She explained that when her father was there, the hospital was overcrowded and had more admitted patients than beds. The result: Her father received his care in the hallway of one of the hospital's inpatient units.
Debbie noticed several aspects of the basic care experience missing in the hallway when compared to a patient room.
No television, phone or call button (although th...
Source: hospital impact - December 5, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
Examining patient satisfaction incentives through different lenses
by Thomas Dahlborg
My most recent Hospital Impact blog post "The hidden costs of incentivizing patient satisfaction" received a powerful and informative response. Today we continue the conversation with feedback received via the FierceHealthcare - Healthcare Leader Idea Exchange LinkedIn forum.
Tom S., M.D., through the lens of patient satisfaction and process improvement, highlights the folly of incentivizing patient satisfaction, as well as reminds us of the need to identify the root-cause of barriers to our goals:
"Creating a financial incentive for patient satisfaction is like treating hypoglycemia with glucose. It...
Source: hospital impact - December 5, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
