Whitepapers - Now Available for Download
The following whitepapers have been made available to readers of Becker's Hospital Review. Click on the category below to see the whitepaper available on that topic.
Organizational Culture & Performance
Title: Anesthesia Subsidy: Unraveling the Web of Doubt
Source: Somnia Anesthesia
For many hospital administrators, the anesthesia subsidy has evolved into a web of uncertainty that is highly dependent for the sustainability of anesthesia department. While general consensus is that the best scenario is to eliminate the anesthesia subsidy, the truth is that a prevalent lack of understanding of what it encompasses is the biggest issue.
Several factors contribute to the confusion of what an anesthesia subsidy actually provides, notably complex billing and reimbursement and lack of transparency given to the hospital by the anesthesia group. By obtaining a strong foundation of fluency in these two areas, hospital executives will then understand what the anesthesia subsidy is, and more importantly, the value it should provide to their facility.
Somnia’s latest Anesthesia Perspectives, “Anesthesia Subsidy: Unraveling the Web of Doubt,” delves into this topic in greater detail and provides greater transparency of the anesthesia subsidy. It uncovers questions like:
- “What's actually included in the anesthesia subsidy?"
- “What’s the value it should provide to my hospital?”
- “What should I demand from my anesthesia provider?”
Download this paper to understand what you should be receiving from your anesthesia team.
Organizational Culture Performance
Source: Towers Watson
Drawing on our work with clients in the health care industry, Towers Watson has studied the connections between employee opinion measures and business performance using data from over 600 health care units within several U.S. hospital systems. Through these analyses, we found that the link between positive work attitudes and better clinical performance is most likely to occur when two critical pillars are in place:
- Leadership focus on core organizational values.
- Consistent on-the-job support.
What follows is a closer look at the set of linkage analyses we've conducted from work we've done with these systems, which illustrate the strength of these connections in practical terms. We also highlight actions that hospital leaders can take to influence the employee behaviors that help drive better results for the organization. Download the whitepaper here.
Source: AchieveIt
Whether you are looking to build flawless strategic or operational plans, drive accountability to unprecedented levels, or execute with focused precision, your ultimate goal is to produce better results, more often, and sooner rather than later. That is what this collection of top white papers from AchieveIt is designed to do – help you execute smarter, faster, and better. This bundled set includes the following titles: 1) Accelerating Business Results Through Better Execution, 2) Three Strategies That Will Elevate Organizational Accountability Immediately, and 3) How to Build a Foolproof Plan. Download the whitepapers here.
Title: How Culture Drives, or Hinders, Hospital Outcomes
Source: Select International
This paper discusses the struggles that healthcare organizations face with culture change due to the fact that they are often unclear on what it means and how it links to their overall goals. Culture manifests itself in the collective behaviors of the workforce so the desired behaviors need to be identified and encouraged and detrimental behaviors cannot be tolerated. Read more to learn how culture can drive, or hinder, hospital outcomes. Download this whitepaper here.
Title: Building a Quality Framework: The Structure and Focus That Create a High-Performing Organization
Source: Studer Group
Every healthcare organization wants to be high performing. The desire to provide high-quality care to every patient in every department every day in every interaction is woven into our very DNA. And of course, in a Pay for Performance environment, our ability to do so consistently determines our likelihood of survival. Read how to execute properly, every time. Download the whitepaper here.
Title: Quality and the Accountability Connection: Why We Can’t Have One without the Other
Source: Studer Group
Quality has always mattered. Delivering top-notch clinical quality day after day, and striving to get better and better at doing so, have always been our industry’s main goals. After all, patient care isn’t just another product or service. We’re talking about saving human lives, and we have a human responsibility to do our best work. Learn how to stay focused on your overall goal of providing the best care to the patient. Download the whitepaper here.
Process Improvement
Source: Surgical Directions
The OR is the traditional revenue engine of the hospital. Perioperative services at better performing institutions contributes up to 68% of a hospital’s revenue and up to 60% of a hospital’s operating margin. But as more patient volume transitions to government payers through the Affordable Care Act, the balance sheet is shifting. In many hospitals, the surgical services department no longer delivers the profit the organization needs to survive. What can hospital leaders do to shore up OR profitability? The key is to address root problems in OR organization and processes. This whitepaper from Surgical Directions describes six interventions that will transform your OR into a high-margin driver of hospital financial performance. Download the whitepaper here.
Title: Memorial Hermann Success Story
Source: VHA
Expertise, proven processes, and industry-leading business intelligence lead to transformational changes Memorial Hermann Healthcare System partnered with VHA on a Non-Salary Cost Reduction and Door-to-Discharge(tm) engagement, significantly reducing supply costs, optimizing processes, and improving utilization of supplies and services. In less than two years, Memorial Hermann saved nearly $50 million, far exceeding expectations in terms of financial results, patient quality, and patient care. Download the whitepaper here.
Physician Integration
Title: Physician Acquisition: Is It The Right Strategy For Your Health System?
Source: athenahealth
A dizzying number of recent acquisitions, both physician practices acquiring more physicians and hospital systems acquiring physicians, have been occurring in today’s volatile health care environment. But are acquisitions really the right way to go? And how can health care leaders pursue successful strategies without resorting to acquisition? Before your hospital system or medical group pursues acquisition as a strategy to thrive through the ongoing change, consider the thought-provoking points in this whitepaper. Download it here.
Title: The Checkbox is Not the Patient
Source: M*Modal
Although electronic medical records are a valuable tool to improve and coordinate patient care, they do not replace a providers' interaction with a patient. The EMR might be a single location for clinicians to access lots of patient information, but this collection of maps should not be confused with "the truth." In attempting to build a “single source of truth” that supports computer-assisted reporting and decision-making, EMRs have tried to make clinicians enter data in formats that computers understand. The primary EMR tool to achieve these goals has been the checkbox and its variants (e.g. radio buttons and list boxes). Like most great tools, the checkbox and its cousins are overused. As a result, providers must be cautious to ensure the EMR and its checkboxes do not overtake complete patient interactions. This whitepaper overviews problems that can arise when this is the case and provides three key actions providers can take to reduce the problems health IT can create. Download it here.
Title: Meeting the Challenges of HIPAA Compliance, Phishing Attacks and Mobile Security
Source: Proofpoint
Healthcare organizations face three major IT security and compliance challenges:
(1) Regulations such as HIPAA are getting stricter and enforcement actions are becoming more common and costly. (2) Hackers and criminal syndicates are targeting healthcare organizations with new forms of intrusive IT attacks that steal valuable data. (3) As in other industries, healthcare is undergoing an IT revolution enabled by consumer-class mobile devices like iPads and Android phones. While smartphones and tablets give healthcare workers unprecedented access to patient records and other medical data on the go, this new, decentralized infrastructure often makes it more difficult for HCOs to protect confidential data.
Read this whitepaper to learn about:
1.The top IT security challenges faced by healthcare organizations — from HIPAA compliance and phishing attacks to mobile security.
2. How the "bring your own device" (BYOD) trend puts organizations at greater risk of security threats and regulatory violations.
3.Strategies your organization can use to mitigate challenges related to compliance, cyber threats and mobile security.
Download the whitepaper here.
Title: Making Sense of Big Data: Using Data Analytics to Drive Population Health
Source: IBM
As healthcare organizations — including health systems, accountable care organizations and large medical groups — prepare for population health management, one of the biggest challenges facing them will be where to start and what initiatives will have the most impact. Luckily for these organizations, the answers to these questions already exist within their electronic health record and other data systems. However, many organizations lack the ability to make sense of this unstructured data. Two whitepapers presented by IBM — "Leveraging Smart Technology to Deliver the Future of Healthcare" and "Unlocking the Power of Unstructured Data" — discuss how healthcare organizations can use data mining to inform decision-making around strategies for improving population health. Download the whitepapers here.
Title: Survey Results: The Role of Mobility Strategies in Healthcare
Source: Amcom
The method of electronic communication continues to evolve as smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices become the preferred tools for providers. Nearly 300 healthcare organizations were surveyed to better understand how hospitals are implementing mobility strategies and what topics they identify as important to consider. This whitepaper examines the top three topics and discusses solution ideas. Download the whitepaper here.
Title: Extended Validation SSL Certificates
Source: Thawte
Do customers trust your website? Extended Validation SSL delivers the acknowledged industry standard for the highest level of online identity assurance processes for SSL certificate issuance. Find out how the EV standard increases the visibility of authentication status through the use of a green address bar in the latest high security web browsers and inspires confidence from visitors to your website. Download the whitepaper here.
Title: Source: Opera Solutions
Hospitals are already struggling with razor-thin profit margins and losing out on hundreds of millions of dollars because of incorrect billing. And as invoices become more complex, the problem is only getting worse. Existing solutions—human review or rules-based analytics—are not able to address the problem. But advanced analytics that use pattern-recognition techniques and bring together many models of comparison are proving far more effective in minimizing revenue leakage. This whitepaper explores one revenue leakage solution that reduces the number of missed charges and uses machine-learning technology to accommodate each hospital and adapt to changing regulationsover time. Learn more about how Big Data and advanced analytics can increase both auditor efficiency and revenue while giving management better oversight. Download the whitepaper here.
Title: Source: Billing Tree
This is an exciting yet challenging time for healthcare revenue cycle management. One reality remains evident - patients will continue to pay more out of pocket for healthcare services, regardless of their status with public or private payers. This whitepaper explores Patient Payment Portals and how new technology is helping healthcare providers meet the pressing challenges of reducing bad debt by improving patient billing and collection. Learn more about the state of the patient’s role in healthcare revenue cycle management and a vision of where things may be headed and how you may need to adapt as a PCP, group, facility, hospital, clinic, specialty or lab. Download the whitepaper here.
Title: Chargemaster Automation: A Strategic Asset for Achieving Revenue Integrity
Source: Craneware
With healthcare reform, healthcare organizations must find ways to operate more efficiently and deliver value. This paper shows how, as the central point of the revenue cycle, automating chargemaster maintenance is a vital tool for ensuring optimal reimbursement, operational efficiency and compliance. Download the whitepaper here.
Title: Enhancing Cash Collections & Internal Controls
Source: Zirmed
Healthcare co-payments now account for 20% of total revenue in the typical physician practice, but providers who have not adopted the current set of industry best practices generally only collect 50-60% of these payments. By implementing the best practices in this whitepaper, healthcare providers can increase collection rates to over 90% and decrease billing expenses, both of which contribute to wider operating margins and a healthier bottom line. Download the whitepaper here.
Title: Procurement Optimization: A Holistic Approach
Source: GHX
This whitepaper for healthcare executives examines procurement in today's healthcare environment and provides recommendations for using technology, people and processes to optimize procurement. Topics addressed include: the importance and key challenges of procurement optimization; the bottom-line impact of physician preference items; the real, measurable benefits of creating a tighter linkage between revenue cycle and supply chain; and the four steps to achieve an optimal procurement function. Download the whitepaper here.
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