A medical supply rep from Maryland was recently charged in the theft of expensive medical kits from area hospitals that he later sold on eBay. Each of the medical kits were sold for approximately $33,000 each, netting the man nearly $200,000. As this article from The Washington Post explains: “Burke Slater, 52, of Gaithersburg, was […]
Expensive Medical Supplies Stolen From Hospitals Read More »
Due to the nature of how hospitals and health systems acquire supplies, product prices are constantly changing. Different hospitals in the same health system, and even different departments within the same hospital, may be paying different rates for the same items, and those prices are typically in flux. With supply chains and individual departments within
How Supply Price Inaccuracies Can Affect The Bottom Line Read More »
A recent survey conducted by Cardinal Health showed that 40% of hospital staff have cancelled a case due to an out-of-stock supply, and 69% of staff have had to delay a case while a missing supply is being tracked down. Having spoken to hundreds of staff in operating rooms, cath labs and interventional radiology labs,
Supply Stock-Outs Have An Outsized Effect On The Bottom Line Read More »
Yet another study has been published showing the disappointing return on investment that hospitals are experiencing with their electronic health record (EHR) implementations. The new study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), showed that the costs of administering billing and insurance-related functions may actually have increased following EHR roll-outs. This is
Disappointed With The ROI From Your EHR Investment? You’re Not Alone Read More »
Historically, the cost of a surgical procedure has been a difficult equation to solve. As the US healthcare system moves more and more toward a value-based system, hospitals require now more than ever an accurate understanding of their procedure costs. These accurate procedure costs then need to be compared to outcomes in order to perform
The Key To Figuring Out Your Cost Per Case Read More »
Hospitals are just scratching the surface of the value that they can derive from the data in their Electronic Health Records (EHRs). Simultaneously, they are facing a growing threat to their EHR data – physicians and other clinicians are increasingly vocal about their frustration with the time they are spending documenting encounters in EHRs instead
The “Post-EHR” Era Will Require Hospitals To Get More Value Out Of Their EHR Data Read More »
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
How To Create A Digital Audit Trail For Your Tissue Read More »
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 »