Governance practices in the for-profit sector are not much different from those in the hospital/health system not-for-profit world. Consider this on board education from Deloitte Center for Corporate Governance: “Today’s boards of directors are facing an unprecedented level of scrutiny and pressure from shareholders, the media, institutional investors, and other stakeholders. Boardroom training and development […]
The blog this week is from John Harris, DGA Partners. As health providers adapt to health reform and an increasingly competitive marketplace, strategic responses are starting to come into focus. Some say there will be one successful model, but we are seeing diverse strategies, and the threat of disruption from niche players. Health […]
“Excessive market concentration” may be one of the best-known causes of high healthcare costs, reported the New York Times last week (“Health Care’s Overlooked Cost Factor,” New York Times, June 11, 2013). Hospital consolidations have contributed to highly concentrated hospital markets, and consolidations continue today. The article notes there have been more than 1,000 hospital […]
Although many hospitals/systems currently may be evaluating whether to acquire or merge with another organization, a recent report notes that only about 10 percent of community hospitals (approximately 551 hospitals) have been a part of a merger or acquisition transaction from 2007 and 2012. (“AHA Report Says Hospital Mergers Don’t Harm Competition,” Health Lawyers Weekly, […]
The shift to value-based purchasing and away from reimbursement based on volume requires hospitals and health systems to transform their processes and capitalize on opportunities in the changing competitive landscape. The Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) calls this “strategic agility” and recently released an educational report that identifies characteristics of strategic agility. (Heeding the Call […]
We know that many board members view their quality oversight role as elusive—and daunting. It may help to read about the broader context within which policy makers discuss various approaches to measuring quality across the organization. Last week, we featured new criteria for measuring and proving “value.” Today, we focus on policy recommendations to […]
Last week’s blog introduced Moody’s Investors Service Pursuit of Value paper (Lisa Goldstein, Special Comment: Pursuit of Value, May 8, 2013), and focused on the four key components a hospital/system must exhibit to create value: Achieving breakeven performance with Medicare rates Building scale through non-traditional methods Improving patient experience Cultivating informed leadership This week, […]
“Healthcare reform is a federal mandate to replace an antiquated and unsustainable reimbursement system with a more rational payment system based on value,” writes Lisa Goldstein from Moody’s Investors Service in a recent Special Comment, Not-for-Profit Hospitals: The Pursuit of Value. Ms. Goldstein, an iProtean expert featured in many foundational and advanced iProtean courses, presents […]
(Note: for an update to last week’s blog, Health Spending and the Economy, please check our Facebook page.) The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officially issued proposed regulations in early April addressing the requirement under Section 501(r)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code that tax-exempt hospitals conduct community health needs assessments. The proposed regulations also provide […]
Researchers and policy makers have been investigating whether the recent slowdown in health spending has resulted from structural changes in health care or from broader economic forces, specifically the recession in 2007 through 2009. A recent study by The Kaiser Family Foundation and the Altarum Institute assesses the correlation between health spending and the economy. […]