Gains are worth the pain in forming comanagement agreements
The changing healthcare environment is forcing physicians and hospitals to find new ways of working together to achieve top performance. As payers move to value-based purchasing and providers raise the bar on quality, efficiency, and cost savings, a sustainable model that drives results is essential. One effective physician–hospital model built…
Editorial
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services penalizes hospitals for readmissions stemming from myocardial infarction, heart failure, pneumonia, and total hip and knee arthroplasty, and in 2016, coronary artery bypass graft procedures will be added to the mix. For this and many other reasons, OR leaders everywhere are taking steps…
Editorial
Reports that emerged in late 2014 reflect both progress and problems in healthcare delivery. And while regulatory and financial hurdles continue to loom large in 2015, some of these obstacles are being cleared. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality cited an impressive 1.3 million decline in the number of…
Editorial
Education is always high on my list of goals at the start of a new year, and OR Manager’s two annual events are excellent resources for new insights into the care of surgical patients. Both will feature experienced leaders addressing the key issues that affect the management of ORs in…
Editorial
More than 2,600 hospitals in fiscal year 2015 are facing Medicare readmission penalties, to the tune of an estimated $428 million, a recent Kaiser Health News report indicates. Among these, 39 hospitals—including some specialty surgical hospitals, small community hospitals, and a major teaching facility—will lose the maximum 3% of their…
Conference equips OR leaders with critical management skills
More than 1,500 registrants from the perioperative nursing community representing 49 states and 10 countries gathered in Long Beach, California, in September for the 27th annual OR Manager Conference. Attendees chose from an education menu of preconference seminars, general sessions, and breakout sessions, as well as numerous company-sponsored CE programs.…
Editorial
If you skipped this year's OR Manager conference, you missed an opportunity to learn about the evolution of healthcare delivery and the changes you should be making at your facility. Improving the patient’s experience of care was an underlying theme. We’ve all heard about the shift from volume-based to value-based…
Editorial
Individual health insurance coverage mandated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went into effect a year ago. Whether that has helped or hindered patients is unclear. Similarly, the jury is still out on the ACA’s long-term effects for healthcare providers. A recent report from Moody's Investors Service paints a bleak…
Editorial
Projections made about a decade ago told us to expect that the RN workforce would peak at around 2.2 million in 2012 and would then begin to shrink as nurses reached retirement age. Instead, say the authors of a recent Health Affairs report, there were 2.7 million RNs working in…
OR Manager of the Year sets--and meets--high bar
Increasing case volume, physician satisfaction, and patient safety are goals every OR leader strives to achieve. The 2014 OR Manager of the Year, Nancy Daughety, RN, has bragging rights to all three. Daughety is administrative director of perioperative services at St Francis Hospital, Inc, a 376-bed community hospital in Columbus,…
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- Global nursing workforce grows but inequities jeopardize health progress
- Largest US healthcare fraud case reveals billions in false Medicare, Medicaid claims and vast schemes nationwide