Quality

The focus of quality improvement in healthcare is to bolster performance and processes related to diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Leaders in this space also ensure the proper selection of imaging exams and procedures, and monitor the safety of services, among other duties. Reimbursement programs such as the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) utilize financial incentives to improve quality. This also includes setting and maintaining care quality initiatives, such as the requirements set by the Joint Commission.

Data Mining & Informatics Advance Cancer Care Management

Cancer is on pace to be the no. 1 killer disease worldwide within the next 15 years, and already has overtaken heart disease in the United Kingdom, among other countries. Fortunately, innovative technologies in informatics and IT promise to improve cancer care, whether by bridging the gaps in standard radiology PACS for nuclear medicine or by finding ways to leverage big data for better diagnosis and monitoring.

From Good to Great: How Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital Achieved Excellence

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Nearly a decade ago, when David Fox assumed the role of president and CEO of Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital, Downers Grove, Illinois, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award-winning hospital held a somewhat moderate quality ranking. Employee satisfaction ranked in the 46th percentile and its physician hospital organization (PHO) was paying

Change for the Better: Cleveland Clinic Improves the Patient Experience

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After Delos “Toby” Cosgrove, MD, CEO of Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, made a presentation about the hospital’s record of operational excellence at Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, several years ago, a student asked him what the hospital was doing about teaching its physicians empathy.

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R.I. hospital's new NICU allows for infant care delivery innovations

PROVIDENCE, R.I.—Welcome to the future of neonatal healthcare. Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island opened a new neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in 2009 to facilitate the delivery of family-centered healthcare and the increasingly coordinated efforts of its staff. As a core component of the Transition Home Plus Program, an initiative aimed at improving outcomes for prematurely born infants, the state-of-the-art NICU is a hotbed for healthcare innovation

Benchmarking Physician Performance: Methods and Metrics

Physician employment is back—and this time, it may be here to stay, says Nick Fabrizio, PhD, a principal with the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) Health Care Consulting Group. "I see the employment trend continuing," he says. "Not only because of declining reimbursement, but because of increases in operating expenses every year. Add in

Streamlining Utilization: HCA North Texas

Nine-hospital health system HCA North Texas, based in Irving, is like most health care organizations in the United States: faced with a challenging financial environment, it needs to find innovative ways to do more with less. Explains Michael Hayes, director of asset management for the health system, "We have to streamline processes that

The New Hospital-Physician Alignment: Preparing for a Value-Based Future

Challenges to the traditional structure of physician economics were already creating a trend toward increased hospital-physician alignment when health care reform added a strong incentive in the form of support for accountable care organizations (ACOs).1 Greg Scrine, managing principal in GE Healthcare's Performance Solutions Integrated Healthcare

Virtua Voorhees Hospital: Patient-Centric Design for Smarter Care

When the team at Virtua, a non-profit health care system headquartered in Marlton, NJ, began planning its new Voorhees hospital location in 2002, it was agreed that the design of the new facility would be governed by patient care. “The goal we had in mind was to spend our money around the patient,” says Virtua CEO Richard Miller. “When we visited

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