Understanding Patient Experience: Best Practices and Lessons from HCAHPS Successes
Patient experience has become a major factor in health care — and for good reason. Not only is patient experience (aka patient satisfaction) now directly tied to reimbursement, but as the health care marketplace becomes more competitive via partnerships, mergers and new entrants, patients — many of whom are paying higher deductibles —are increasingly noting the value and service they receive in their health care delivery. As a result, health care, like other industries, is becoming more consumer-centric. Providers must respond accordingly. Some health care organizations are basing...
Making the Most of Population Health Efforts
There’s a business maxim that says: "what gets rewarded gets repeated." What gets rewarded also gets people's attention, such as last year's historic HHS announcement that by the end of 2018 it would like an ambitious 90% of traditional Medicare payments transformed into value-based reimbursement, through accountable care organizations, bundled payments or hospital quality programs. As recently as 2011, Medicare made almost no payments through alternative payment models. For providers, if population health wasn’t already a strategic mandate,...
Agile Management Can Benefit Health Care Process Improvement Projects By Chet Stagnaro
As seen in Becker's Hospital Review. Health care organization leaders are working hard to create, update and continuously improve on their processes to align with the Triple Aim initiative (see Figure 1. Triple Aim Model). Their top priorities include providing appropriate levels of patient care and patient care quality, as well as learning about patient and health plan member populations and optimizing costs for health care delivery. Since these priorities are so focused on process efficiencies and patient...
Adopt Mindfulness Principles to Help Facilitate Change By Carly Dunham
As seen in Becker's Hospital Review. If you've ever participated in, or led, a change management effort, you know how difficult it can be to get others (or even yourself!) to embrace the desired change. While change can be incredibly valuable and is a norm for today's organizations to thrive and survive, researchers estimate that as many as 70 percent of all change initiatives stall, lose focus, or get derailed. Rather than chancing the likelihood of change initiative...
Establishing the Basis for Accountable Care Organization Success
As seen in HealthITAnalytics. Care management is the key to ACO success, but many healthcare organizations overlook the most fundamental factor in care coordination…an advanced system of primary care! ACO models involve many varied elements of care management, but without advanced primary care at the center of these systems, success can be disjointed. There are many misconceptions surrounding the advanced primary care model of care, which builds on the patient-centered medical model of healthcare. However, these newer primary care models...
The Impact of Obamacare on Safety Net Hospitals
As seen in Becker's Health IT & CIO Review. Safety net hospitals—as the name implies—play a critical role in the nation's health care system by serving low-income, uninsured and medically and socially vulnerable patients regardless of their ability to pay. Yet because they serve such a high proportion of patients who are uninsured or enrolled in Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California), many safety net hospitals face an uncertain financial future. Such uncertainty results from government funding changes, increased performance and service expectations...
Recruiting Millennial Primary Care Physicians By Katherine P. Redmond
As seen in Becker's Hospital Review. Where have all the primary care physicians (PCPs) gone? If your organization is experiencing greater difficulty attracting and retaining qualified PCPs, you're part of a national trend. By 2025, there's projected to be a shortfall of between 12,500 and 31,100 PCPs in the United States, according to a new study by the Association of American Medical Colleges. This projected shortage is alarming, given the significant clinical and business impact of PCPs. Not only do PCPs serve as...
How Is Your ACO Doing? Check with Your Patients! By Shanti Wilson
As seen in HealthITAnalytics. While the growth rate of accountable care organizations (ACOs) has slowed over the past two years, and despite several departures from Medicare’s Pioneer ACO program, approximately 70 percent of the US population live in areas served by ACOs. Nearly 45 percent reside in areas served by two or more ACOs, based on data- from consulting firm Oliver Wyman. Since the start of 2014, an estimated 4.5 million more lives are now part of public and private ACOs, and...
Is Your Patient Health Care Data Secure? Take These Four Checklist Tests And Be Sure!
Originally published in the Newsletter of Physicians Reimbursement Fund, Inc. By: Margaret S. Leonard Does your practice use electronic health records? Do you rely on interactive websites or online portals where patients can enter their personal demographic and billing information? Do you utilize third party billing services? All of the above questions are important, and if you answered “yes” to any of them, it’s time to ask yourself one more question: Just how well is my patient data being protected? If you aren’t...
5 Steps Toward Maximizing Your Clinical and Business Intelligence (C&BI) By Kam Reams
Although management guru Peter Drucker famously said “What gets measured, gets managed,” measurement itself, while a great starting point, is no guarantee of management. In health care, clinical and business intelligence (C&BI) involves analyzing and using healthcare data to directly inform—and presumably improve—clinical and business decision-making. Yet data analysis is easier said than done, as HIMSS board member Diane M. Carr recently acknowledged in an interview: “With the explosion of electronic health records recently, more and more health systems and individual...
Developing a Successful Physician Engagement Strategy
As seen in Becker's Hospital Review. If your hospital, clinic, or system is struggling with successfully transitioning from a fee-for-service to fee-for-value payment environment, look no further than your physicians to potentially fuel your fiscal growth and improve your quality of care. Physician engagement is the holy grail of today’s healthcare industry, and it’s easy to see why. In a recent Gallup study of a hospital system, physicians rated “fully engaged” and “engaged” delivered an average of 51% more inpatient...