Tissue and related specimens present a unique tracking challenge for hospitals and surgery centers – these often expensive and occasionally one-of-a-kind items are required to be closely monitored during the hospital’s handling of each unit. The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), state Departments of Health and hospital accreditation bodies, such as The Joint Commission […]
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Flexible endoscopes present a unique challenge for hospitals to track and manage – these expensive medical instruments must be quickly re-processed after usage in order to provide the required instrumentation for the next procedure, yet they must undergo rigorous, time-consuming reprocessing after every use to ensure the highest levels of patient safety. Due to different
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As we head into 2018, there appears to be a lot of headwinds facing hospitals and healthcare systems: regulatory uncertainty around the Affordable Care Act, slowing patient admissions, accelerating costs and shrinking margins. Moody’s Investor Services predicts bad debt to grow 6-7% in 2018 and operating cash flow for non-profit hospitals to shrink 2-4%. In
3 Cost Containment Ideas For Hospitals Heading Into a Challenging Environment In 2018 Read More »
Many hospital financial executives view clinical documentation improvement (CDI) efforts to improve capture revenue as a purely financial gain for their hospital. This is a perfectly valid reason for pursuing CDI initiatives, as all major investments should have a financial return to the hospital. However, re-examining CDI efforts and changing from a proactive to reactive
The Benefits Of Proactive vs. Reactive Clinical Documentation Improvement Read More »
Hospitals and healthcare systems across the US have spent billions of dollars per year over the last decade implementing electronic medical record (EMR) systems across their operations. A lot of the promise of EMR systems for hospitals is the data that they can collect that can be used for a wide range of analyses: cost
Using Clean Data To Get More Out Of Your EMR Investment Read More »
As healthcare providers continue to pursue the triple aim, leading hospitals are turning to data analytics to identify major areas for improvement in daily operations. All three of the triple aim objectives – patient experience, population health and cost – can be attacked in various ways by analyzing high fidelity data for trends and patterns.
Using Analytics to Improve Quality and Lower Costs Read More »
With the constant shift in the payor environment, and the continuing consolidation of the hospital market, many healthcare providers are having to search for new ways to cut costs and increase revenues just to stay profitable. There are so many places that hospitals can unlock additional dollars, but where should they start? The management team
How To Close A $25 Million Budget Gap In 10 Days Read More »
With the recent scrutiny placed on the Joint Commission (TJC) in publications like the Wall Street Journal, TJC has found itself on the defensive regarding its accreditations and how it holds hospitals accountable for safety violations. In response, TJC has been trying to open up a dialogue with the public about the importance of its
The Difference Between Passing a Joint Commission Survey and Continuous Improvement Read More »
For the past several decades in healthcare, inventory has been managed independently from the rest of the business of providing healthcare. When you step back and look at how supplies impact the business of providing healthcare, you’ll see that hospitals can benefit greatly from extending the visibility of supplies to clinical documentation and billing. Charges
Increasing Procedural Revenue Read More »
As discussed in a recent article, recalled medical devices continue to be a patient safety and financial concern for hospitals and insurers. A recent study by Medicare estimated that over a 10 year span, they spent over $1.5 billion on surgeries and follow-up for over 73,000 patients implanted with one of seven defective heart devices.
Medicare To Consider Tracking Unique IDs For Medical Implants Read More »