By Kevin Shrake | August 16, 2010
| Print Magazine
A key trait of effective executives is to ask the right questions of your team. I have a recent example related to revenue cycle where taking a “deeper dive” into the operations proved beneficial.
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More than ever, healthcare organizations of all types and sizes are feeling the pressure to implement specific business and clinical initiatives to meet government regulations and increase operational efficiency. Whether it is complying with quality standards or expanding the use of an electronic health record, adopting a major strategic initiative requires thoughtful analysis of the tactics it takes to get there.
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As president and CEO of Atlantic Health, a two-hospital healthcare system and one of New Jersey's largest healthcare employers, I have the privilege of touting our exceptional care delivery and innovative medical advances.
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Cloud computing is an Internet-based usage of computer applications and services whereby various computing resources, such as computer applications, websites and data centers, are shared in a public utility model. It is a paradigm shift in computing starting with migration from the mainframe to the client server, to the Internet, and to models such as software as a service, or SaaS; platform as a service, or PaaS; and infrastructure as a service, or IaaS.
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When payers and providers sit down to talk, all too often the scene resembles gunslingers from the Old West sizing each other up. After the small talk, each side works hard to negotiate better rates from the other. Words such as “trust” and “sharing” are noticeably absent. Both parties frequently see the negotiation as a zero-sum game: One side's gain is the other's loss.
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By Melissa Bruntlett | April 05, 2010
| Print Magazine
In my role as the chief financial officer of a small community hospital in central Mississippi, I'm required to take a lot of leaps of faith when making decisions, simply because those decisions at times involve intangibles that extend far beyond financial data. Over the past eight years, one certainty of the ever-changing landscape of healthcare is this: If your decisions are guided by what is best for patients over the long term, it is likely the outcome will be beneficial to your organization.
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It was Sept. 9, 1975. I was a diploma nurse just one year out of college, and my supervisor tapped me on the shoulder and said, “I need you to cover for an upcoming maternity leave in a different department.” This temporary coverage in the chronic dialysis unit lasted more than 11 years and was the beginning of my leadership journey. Little did I know that being the medical director of the dialysis unit would provide the framework for my leadership development.
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By Michael Fassler | February 15, 2010
| Print Magazine
One of the most important challenges in healthcare today is providing high-quality care that meets the needs of our increasingly diverse society.
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By Mark Laney | February 01, 2010
| Print Magazine
I joined Heartland Health, St. Joseph, Mo., as president and CEO on Aug. 1, 2009. Since that time, Heartland was named a recipient of the 2009 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and the sole recipient of the Foster G. McGaw Prize for community service—two of the most prestigious honors in healthcare. This has been an incredible six months for all of us at Heartland.
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On March 19, 1997, I was in Washington, D.C., at an annual meeting of Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. executives when Rick Scott took the stage and told us the FBI had raided our El Paso, Texas, offices earlier that day.
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By Laura Long | November 30, 2009
| Print Magazine
As the nation looks to transform healthcare from delivering too much care to consistently delivering higher quality, high-value care, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of South Carolina isn't waiting for a healthcare reform law.
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By Deborah Friberg | November 16, 2009
| Print Magazine
Infections hurt patients and represent one of the primary opportunities in healthcare to improve outcomes. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every year 1.7 million patients get sick from an infection they contract while in the hospital, and 100,000 of them die.
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By Gene Winters | October 05, 2009
| Print Magazine
Rarely has a hospital received a “death sentence” from the CMS—the revocation of its Medicare and Medicaid certifications—and survived without a significant change in ownership or organizational structure. One such rarity, however, is the story of Haywood Regional Medical Center in Clyde, N.C. As there was scant history dealing with decertification, the steps necessary to create lasting change had to be developed on the fly.
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By V. William Hunt | September 21, 2009
| Print Magazine
Amid the national healthcare reform debate, it's also important to keep the need to improve the quality of care and patient safety at healthcare organizations in the forefront. Physicians, nurses and clinical staff at hospitals understand this emphasis, but top-level leadership—including the board of directors—is a key to achieving these goals.
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By Brian Connolly | August 03, 2009
| Print Magazine
Nowhere have the effects of record unemployment, corporate downsizing and other cutbacks been felt more than in Michigan, home of the Big Three automakers. Healthcare providers here face unprecedented challenges, including staggering increases in uncompensated and charity care coupled with decreases in federal and state spending. Oakwood Healthcare—like Ford Motor Co., headquartered in Dearborn, Mich.—is working to meet those challenges head-on.
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When SSM Health Care decided to move ahead with the electronic health record back in 2005, we had a number of critical decisions to make, not the least of which was who would be the primary supplier for the EHR. A year or so later with the partner selected, we also had to begin making decisions about how we were going to build this EHR.
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Many Americans believe that medicine is fraught with escalating costs, a variety of quality issues, roadblocks to access, disruptions in coverage and undesired patient outcomes.
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As the president of a healthcare plan in Ohio, I am used to answering for the shortcomings of our industry. When neighbors vent to me at the grocery store that medical bills are driving them to the poorhouse, it never seems to matter that our plan, SummaCare, has been named one of the nation’s top health plans, or that our 120,000 members consistently give us high marks for service. I’m painted with the same brush as the worst actors in our industry. I understand. It comes with the territory.
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