Changing Attitudes: The Key to Achieving Hospital Productivity Gains
In today’s hospitals, it’s not uncommon to encounter defensiveness from inpatient unit managers who miss their productivity targets.
Category: Financial Performance
Low-Cost, High-Quality Healthcare Can Be a Reality
with Smart Workforce Planning
Apr 01, 2010 | 0 comments | View Post
Taking the Fear out of Hospital Productivity
By Eric Dam, MHA, Principal, Labor Cost Management, Compass Clinical Consulting: In interviews conducted with senior Chief Financial Officers of hospitals it is abundantly clear that there is a fear to pursue improved productivity / Labor Cost Management. Many hospital leaders, especially in the non-profit sector of the healthcare industry, fear productivity or are otherwise reluctant to pursue a formal productivity assessment and coordinated program to improve their labor cost management.
Sep 25, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
How Easily Overtime and Premium Pay Drive Healthcare Costs Up
Labor Productivity Consultant for Compass Clinical Consulting: Paying overtime to employees can never be cheaper or save the hospital money than having staff deployed according to: Right person, Right role, Right Time, Right place (R4).
Hospital Leaders — Cut Waste Out Before Regulatory Reform Hurts
By Kate Fenner, RN, PhD: The smart leaders understand that regardless of how healthcare reform looks when it becomes law, the real truth is that we’ll all be getting less. Knowing this is the end-point gives us all the freedom to take action now.
Aug 07, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
Is Healthcare Reform On the Wrong Track?
What everyone wants, in the end, is healthcare reform that accomplishes the goals of wider access and lower cost. But there are many different tracks to achieve this needed goals. But when “reducing the cost of healthcare” by mandating lower fees to providers, this should be more carefully analyzed to prevent a future of continuous change. Best [...]
Jul 23, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
Resignation Without Notice Leads to Process Discovery
On the Lean Blog, Jesus “Chuy” Ellin, HT PA andPeter P Patterson, MD MBA noted that the histopathology laboratory at their hospital recently had a breakthrough in the lean journey begun in 2007. The monthly defect rate in the order entry process has fallen precipitously from 33.5% to 2.5% over the past five months, after [...]
Jun 30, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
Implementing Force Multipliers to Reduce Hospital Costs
Force multiplication, in military usage, refers to a combination of attributes or advantages which make a given force more effective than another force of comparable size. A force multiplier refers to a factor that dramatically increases (hence “multiplies”) the effectiveness of a group. A hospital team can use this concept by combining labor cost management with case management.
Private Philanthropy — Another Key to Hospital Financial Stability
By Jim Mahon, PhD: Colleges and universities have traditionally placed a much higher premium on generating both annual and planned gifts than the majority of hospitals. Rather than expounding on the many legitimate reasons why this is the case, let’s focus on steps the Board, the Executive Suite, and the Chief Development Officer (CDO) can take.
Jun 09, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
St. Jude’s Childrens Hospital wins $797,123 from Target
Contest on Facebook earns nearly $800,000 for St. Jude’s Childrens Research Hospital.
May 28, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
Two Trillion Dollars in Healthcare Reform is a Game Changer for Hospitals
By Kate Fenner, CEO, Compass Clinical Consulting: Taking $2 Trillion out of the healthcare system in the next decade is going to force everyone to change how they do business – hospitals, doctors, pharma manufacturers and retailers, medical equipment manufacturers – everyone.
History on Hospital Closings Relevant to Current Healthcare Reform
Will our healthcare facilities be located where they are needed when healthcare access is expanded? Historical data should be considered as reform is implemented. Academic and community hospitals serving economically stressed areas may need additional government support.
May 03, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
Hospitals Facing Red Ink as Recession Impacts Finances
According to new study by Thomson Reuters, the key metrics to watch most closely right now are operating margins and frequency of elective procedures. If they start to slip, it may usher in a host of contagion effects.
Apr 30, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
Systemic Barriers to Hospital Productivity
By Eric Dam: If policies for clocking staff in and out is not addressed regularly, you will have an almost silent vacuum cleaner sucking badly needed financial resources out the door every day until suddenly a financial emergency hits the wall.
Manage Labor Costs While Improving Patient Care
The Impact of Throughput on Labor Cost Improving hospital throughput maximizes the use of hospital assets – time, space, capacity, equipment, and human assets. Maximizing those assets leads to significant productivity gains. When throughput is increased, unnecessary work can be eliminated and existing staff can process added patient volume more effectively. Throughput improvement is especially [...]
Apr 03, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
Revenue Cycle More Important than Ever During Recession
Smoothing out the claims cycle should involve careful scrutiny of claims before they are sent to payors to ensure they are properly coded and edited.
Apr 03, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
Clinical Improvement Leads to Financial Stability
When the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word healthcare systems in Houston and San Antonio merged to form Irving, TX-based CHRISTUS Health in 1999, the new leadership team faced a host of challenges. The system was plagued by financial losses, discouraging results in clinical quality measures, and low satisfaction rates among its patients and employees. The system introduced a program to generate marked improvements–not only in their day-to-day operations, but also in patient and employee satisfaction
Feb 27, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
IRS Investigating Level of Support for Non-Profit Tax Status
Using a bully club of IRS threats to withdraw tax benefits to struggling hospitals just seems to me to be the wrong way to achieve anything positive.
Case studies to learn more about ways in which Compass Clinical has worked to create better American hospitals.