August

Hospital death rates unveiled

Steve Sternberg and Anthony DeBarros, USA TODAY

Until now, hospital death rates were closely guarded secrets, discussed in board rooms but beyond the reach of patients whose lives are on the line. That changed this morning when USA TODAY posted on its website the government's best estimates of heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia death rates for every U.S. hospital for two years. Now anyone with access to a computer can directly compare a local hospital with the one across town to see how it stacks up against the biggest medical institutions nationwide.

RFID, radio location services use soaring at hospitals, study shows

John Cox, Network World

A new study shows hospitals are aggressively deploying a range of active and some passive radio-frequency identification systems. The payback no longer is simply being able to find medical equipment including wheelchairs. Increasingly, wireless identification and location data is being used to streamline and repair a range of healthcare workflows and business processes. The study, "Trends in RFID 2008," is based on 100 telephone interviews earlier this year with IT professionals and clinical and nursing directors at hospitals with typically 300 or more beds.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/082008-rfid-radio-location-services-hospitals.html

Staffing shortages, EHRs keep hospital execs awake at night

Bernie Monegain, HealthcareITNews

EHRs will "revolutionize" heath care, but it may be a decade before they're available in most hospitals, according to a survey of health care administrators, nurses and doctors. In addition, because EHRs and other HIT have the potential of reducing time spent on administrative duties, they might also help recruit and retain needed health care workers.

http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9793

They show how it's done

Elizabeth Gardner, Modern Healthcare

Thomson Reuters' annual roster of the 100 most-improved hospitals shows how organizations take performance to the next level. To make the Performance Improvement Leaders roster, it doesn't matter where a hospital started from, as long as it improved rapidly from there, says Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president of performance improvement and the 100 Top Hospitals programs at Thomson Reuters. "There are management teams who are skilled in getting an organization moving in the right direction, and creating a strong culture of performance improvement," she says. (May require registration.)

http://www.modernhealthcare.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080811/REG/834418755

Hospitals, Health Systems Create Own Health Data Networks

iHealthBeat

Rather than wait for the creation of regional health information organizations, many hospitals and integrated health care delivery systems are building their own networks to share data with area physicians, Health Data Management reports. Mark Holland, program director of health care provider research at IDC's Health Industry Insights, said much of the networking activity in health care involves hospitals connecting to their referring physicians, not larger RHIOs or health information exchanges.

http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2008/8/12/Hospitals-Health-Systems-Create-Own-Health-Data-Networks.aspx?topicID=54

Average ER waiting time nears 1 hour, CDC says

The average time that hospital emergency rooms patients wait to see a doctor has grown from about 38 minutes to almost an hour over the past decade, according to new federal statistics. The increase is due to supply and demand, said Dr. Stephen Pitts, the lead author of the report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "There are more people arriving at the ERs. And there are fewer ERs," said Pitts, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Atlanta's Emory University

http://www.ajc.com/health/content/health/stories/2008/08/06/ER_Wait_cdc.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab

Industry leaders defend federal government's health it plans

George Lauer, iHealthBeat

Health IT industry leaders came to the government's defense in reaction to a report criticizing the federal government's efforts to promote health IT adoption. Reacting to a report from the Heartland Institute calling the federal government's plan for health IT adoption "poorly conceived," health IT leaders defended the five-year plan from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. (May require registration)

http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2008/8/15/Industry-Leaders-Defend-Federal-Governments-Health-IT-Plans.aspx?a=1

Concierge medicine - a growing trend?

J&C Research Associates

Patients as consumers want the highest level of medical service they can afford. Some are willing to pay premium rates for greater access to their primary care provider and more personalized medical attention. With increasing cuts in reimbursable income, more doctors are attracted to the concept of Concierge Medicine. But, given the disparities that exist in healthcare delivery, is this a favorable trend? The Jackson & Coker Special Report looks at all sides of this practice management concept that is gaining more currency within the healthcare profession.

http://www.jacksoncoker.com/newsletter/Articles/Concierge.aspx
Click here to learn about receiving special edition of Jackson & Coker Healthcare Survey Results booklet

Hospital subsidies are off to a slow start with electronic health records

The Medical Quack blog

Federal action that paved the way for hospitals to subsidize a portion of the cost of electronic health records for physicians has yet to trigger a surge of automation interest among physicians, some observers say. And some providers offering deep discounts on EHRs to community physicians have been disappointed by the response so far.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2008/08/hospital-subsidies-are-off-to-slow.html

Innovative strategies for physician-hospital alignment

Beth Connor Guest and James S. Mathis, for HealthLeaders Media

Only a very small section of physicians in the US have adopted Electronic Health Records (EHR) as a part of their daily practice. However, majority of the physicians using these systems are happy with the overall performance of their EHR, according to a national survey, recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study, 'Electronic Health Records in Ambulatory Care - A National Survey of Physicians', funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and supported by the Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/216713/topic/WS_HLM2_FIN/Innovative-Strategies-for-PhysicianHospital-Alignment.html

Memo to the new CFO: Focus on the ED

Caral Edelberg, for HealthLeaders Media

The new hospital CFO typically has so many challenges to address, it's difficult to know where to focus energy first. HealthLeaders Media contributor Caral Edelberg has some advice for new CFOs that can not only provide some early successes, but which can also give the new CFO a big picture idea of how much to expect from future improvement initiatives.

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/217119/topic/WS_HLM2_FIN/Memo-to-the-new-CFO-Focus-on-the-ED.html

Taking stock of investments

Melanie Evans, Modern Healthcare

The economic downturn and credit crunch that spawned sweeping debt restructuring across healthcare earlier this year haven't yet yielded similar overhauls in hospital and health system investment portfolios, according to board members and investment advisers. But the shaky credit markets underscore the need for heightened portfolio oversight by directors and trustees, they say. The recent push for greater accountability at healthcare organizations, the use of more diverse and high-risk investments, and the volatile stock market have all contributed to boards paying closer attention to portfolio risk exposure and rate of return.

http://www.modernhealthcare.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080811/REG/731878106

The perfect hospital CEO from spare parts

Jim Molpus, for HealthLeaders Media

There is no perfect hospital CEO, but there seem to be a lot of imperfect ones lately. No leader of a hospital or any venture is going to have all the attributes of leadership. If you could, however, build a CEO from a parts supply of strengths, what might they be? A few incidents for an industry with 5,700 hospitals and a concurrent number of CEOs is not unusual, but even with that caveat you'd be hard pressed to say it has been a stellar year for public perceptions of hospital CEOs in general.

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/217087/topic/WS_HLM2_LED/The-Perfect-Hospital-CEO-from-Spare-Parts.html