Five Imperatives for Healthy Hospitals Under Health Care Reform
Healthy Hospitals Under Health Care Reform
While the new health care reform law contains some clear benefits for hospitals—not the least of which is access to care for over 30 million Americans who didn’t have it before—it also creates some new challenges. Increased scrutiny around quality outcomes and the need to deliver care more efficiently in response to lower reimbursement rates and changing payment structures are two among many that will test hospitals’ baseline health.
This report highlights what we believe are the five most important actions hospitals can take to improve their overall health in the wake of the new federal health care reform law.
Imperative # 1: Proactively Manage Finances
The new law demands heightened diligence around all aspects of a hospital’s financial operations.
Imperative #2: Commit to Quality
Key elements of the new health care reform law aim directly at holding hospitals accountable for quality of care and helping patients make more informed, quality-driven choices.
Imperative #3: Foster a collaborative, transparent culture
Collaboration and transparency may be buzzwords, but they are very real elements of health care’s future under reform, as many of the law’s provisions encourage greater collaboration among hospitals and physicians and within the hospital environment itself.
Imperative #4: Actively Engage Your Medical Community
Forging a new era of trust with physicians depends on hospitals making clear that they share physicians’ interest in a high quality clinical environment and in being rewarded for delivering results. This is especially so because under health care reform, physicians’ payments will diminish, and they will likely look to the hospitals for help in sustaining their incomes.
Imperative #5: Recruit, Educate, and Retain Proactive Boards of Directors
Maintaining a viable hospital under health care reform demands that boards engage in ways most have never had to in the past.
Conclusion
The to-do list for a healthy hospital can be endless, and this report is not meant to be comprehensive. Moreover, execution is everything, and executing effectively depends on hospitals tailoring concepts to their own particular situation.
Nevertheless, we believe that under health care reform, these five imperatives will be the priority for any hospital. Understanding and executing on these concepts is, in effect, a powerful wellness program that can maintain and improve hospital health in an environment that is rife with both challenges and opportunities.
This article was prepared for general information purposes only to permit you to learn more about Ingenix Consulting and its services. It is not intended as a basis for decisions in specific situations, may not be current, and is subject to change without notice.