May 20, 2012
blog
I was trained to think of coding as a downstream process to care that is of little clinical significance. But, as I learned during the course of the week; I was dead wrong. Rather than simply polishing the chart, those downstream processes are intended to strengthen it. And, with the rapid evolution of MU and value care, the focus on clinical documentation integrity is moving upstream, directly to the provider.
I also found that getting the diagnosis correct, whether for coding, clinical care, quality improvement, or value-based payment is straight-forward but not at all simple.
May 8, 2012
news
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has announced the first winners of the Health Care Innovation awards, which was made possible by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The 26 winners have projects nationwide that will aim save money, deliver high quality medical care and enhance the health care workforce, according to the ACA. The preliminary awardees announced today expect to reduce health spending by $254 million over the next three years.
April 30, 2012
news
Members of the Premier healthcare alliance recorded savings of more than $1.45 billion last year by collaborating to improve performance, integrating and comparing data, and using innovative purchasing practices, on top of an additional $2.75 billion in savings from lowering product pricing for hospitals. The total savings for Premier members was $4.2 billion, to which the for-profit collaborative of hospitals and non-acute care clinics, accounts to its various performance improvement strategies.
April 24, 2012 Mark Hagland
blog
When it comes to charges for common healthcare procedures, a new study from UCSF Medical School finds dramatic variations in hospital charges, even as the healthcare system begins to bend toward greater pricing and outcomes transparency.
March 19, 2012 Mark Hagland
article
The Premier health alliance's enterprise-wide chief medical officer, Dr. Richard Bankowitz, shares his thoughts on what's working in the remarkable QUEST initiative, and why what's being learned needs to be replicated health system-wide. Not surprisingly, data is at the center of the progress being logged in this program.
March 19, 2012 Mark Hagland
article
Clinician leaders at the Spectrum Health System, an eight-hospital, integrated regional health system based on Grand Rapids, Mich., have been succeeding in reducing avoidable hospital readmissions. In fact, the health system has successfully reduced readmissions for patients in their cardiac care unit in less than two years.
March 18, 2012 Mark Hagland
blog
The implications of a new study from the federal Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research (AHRQ) are many for the new healthcare. The key underlying question: is your organization moving towards the new accountability and transparency in healthcare? It's a subject we'll be talking about at our Executive Summit in May.
February 29, 2012 Mark Hagland
article
I’ve found it fascinating reading “Googled: The End of the World as We Know It,” a 2009 book by Ken Auletta, an author and journalist perhaps best-known for penning the “Annals of Communications” column for The New Yorker since 1992. What Auletta does so well in reporting on the rise of Google is to avoid the usual tack of simply telling a corporate narrative, and instead, not only tells truly interesting anecdotes and behind-the-scenes stories, but also supplies the intelligent questions and analysis that make the book a very worthwhile read. Most of all, he puts the story of Google’s development into a very understandable context, without the usual hype. Particularly illuminating is the first chapter, “Messing with the Magic"...
February 14, 2012 Mark Hagland
blog
Just recently, I’ve been looking back at some statistics of particular interest, as many of us head off to HIMSS12 in Las Vegas next week. One data-driven report that came out in late September 2011 strikes me now as especially worthy of comment. On Sep. 28, the folks at the Lebanon, N.H.-based Dartmouth Atlas Project released a report showing that little progress was made during the five-year period from 2004 through 2009 in the area of working to reduce hospital readmissions.
January 31, 2012
news
The Washington D.C-based National Quality Forum (NQF) is endorsing four use measures on healthcare resource use and costs. The measures, which focus on diabetes and cardiovascular care costs as well as total primary-care costs, can provide vital data on how resources are used in these areas of care says NQF. The data, the organization claims, will help create a more efficient, less wasteful healthcare system.
January 31, 2012 Mark Hagland
blog
The results coming out of three years of hospitals' participation in the Premier Health Alliance's QUEST program are in, and they are stunning. When it comes to performance improvement, both on the patient safety/care quality side, and on the cost-reduction side, the QUEST results show that there is no excuse for lack of performance improvement.
January 18, 2012 Mark Hagland
article
The Premier healthcare alliance QUEST program has involved three years of intensive work around patient safety, care quality, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness work among member hospitals. Marquee headline results include 25,000 lives and $4.5 billion estimated to have been saved in the past three years.
