The Business of Surgery

How Michigan Medicine Tracks Tissue To Meet Joint Commission Standards and Reduce Costs

November 8, 2017 / Clinical Documentation, Cost Reduction, Hospital Finance, Hospital Management, Infection Control, Joint Commission, Operating Rooms, Operational Efficiency, Patient Safety, Regulatory Compliance, Supply Chain, The Business of Surgery, Tissue Management /

University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers (U-M) in Ann Arbor, Michigan is one of the nation’s top medical centers, and was recently named the #6 hospital in the United States according to the 2016-17 Best Hospitals Honor Roll rankings by US News and World Report.  As the main medical campus of the Michigan Medicine […]

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Why Tracking Down Patients With Recalled Implants Is Hard Even With Unique IDs

November 1, 2017 / Cath Lab, Clinical Documentation, Hospital Management, Operating Rooms, Patient Safety, Radiology, Supply Chain, The Business of Surgery, Tissue Management /

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.  With such a staggering sum spent

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Falling Short of Your Cost Reduction Goals? You’re Not Alone

October 25, 2017 / Cost Reduction, Hospital Finance, Hospital Management, Operational Efficiency, Supply Chain, The Business of Surgery /

A recent survey by Kaufman, Hall & Associates has revealed that most hospital executives feel that they are falling short of their cost reduction goals.  They survey of over 150 senior hospital executives revealed that 75% of the respondents felt that their cost transformation success has been average to below average. The move from volume

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How To Maximize Revenue With Clinical Documentation Improvements

October 23, 2017 / Clinical Documentation, Hospital Finance, Hospital Management, Operational Efficiency, Revenue Cycle, The Business of Surgery /

With the healthcare payment market continually in flux, hospitals are doing all they can to maximize the revenue that they receive for their work. Not a dollar can slip through the cracks with the narrow margins that most hospitals are operating at. Many hospitals have recognized the merits of a strong clinical documentation improvement (CDI)

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Best Practices for Integrating Implant Management Software With Your Materials Management System

October 16, 2017 / Hospital IT, Operational Efficiency, Supply Chain, The Business of Surgery /

A materials management system plays a vital part of any hospital because it is accountable for all the inventory that is stored inhouse and is the source of information pertaining to any material that is used in a hospital. These systems, like PeopleSoft, Lawson or Infor, manage vendor contracts, maintain pricing, identify consigned or owned

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Meeting Joint Commission Tissue Tracking Requirements

October 7, 2021 / Clinical Documentation, Joint Commission, Operating Rooms, Operational Efficiency, Regulatory Compliance, The Business of Surgery, Tissue Management /

Creating safe, efficient and accurate tissue management processes has become a top priority for PeriOperative departments across the country. Regulatory requirements designed to protect patients continue to evolve and expand with the growth of tissue usage and advances in surgical life-saving and life-enhancing procedures. Approximately 1.75 million people are currently receiving tissue implants annually just

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Return Clinician Time To Patients With EMR Improvements

March 6, 2018 / Big Data, Clinical Documentation, Hospital IT, Hospital Management, Operational Efficiency, The Business of Surgery /

Physicians and other clinicians in hospitals have been increasingly vocal about their frustration with the time they are spending documenting encounters in EMRs instead of focusing on patient care.  Backing up that claim is a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that found that only 27% of the average day is spent by

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Hospital Supplies– A $23 Billion Savings Opportunity?

September 20, 2017 / Big Data, Cost Reduction, Hospital Finance, Hospital Management, Operational Efficiency, Supply Chain, The Business of Surgery /

A recent study by Navigant Consulting concluded that the average hospital could achieve supply savings of nearly $10 million annually, or 17.8%, by pursuing some basic strategic initiatives.  With hospital margins often hovering near breakeven, that is an additional $10 million in savings that can flow directly to the bottom line. The other key finding

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How to Set a Consignment Strategy

August 16, 2022 / Big Data, Cath Lab, Cost Reduction, Hospital Finance, Hospital Management, Operating Rooms, Operational Efficiency, Radiology, Supply Chain, The Business of Surgery /

Consignment items have been a frequent subject of conversations we have with inventory managers in procedural areas of hospitals.  Many hospitals that we’ve visited have a mix of consigned and owned products in their inventory. However, when you dig deeper you’ll find that many supplies were added to inventory as consigned or owned for inconsistent

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How Much Is Consignment Costing Your Hospital?

October 12, 2021 / Hospital Finance, Hospital Management, Operating Rooms, Operational Efficiency, Radiology, Supply Chain, The Business of Surgery /

In a walkthrough of a major academic hospital in the Northeast US, the Chief of Surgery was lamenting how little space she had for new operations. The new hybrid Operating Room she was planning was going to be larger than their typical OR, making the issues even worse. As we walked through the ORs, a

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