The Business of Surgery Value-based payment (VBP) models of patient care have not been shown to effectively reduce healthcare costs, according to a recent report from the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA). But that conclusion comes with several caveats, such as: • It’s too soon to have data on programs like the Medicare Shared…
Disruption in the perioperative setting occurs across a continuum ranging from verbal outbursts to physical violence. “We live in an increasingly violent society, and we need to take measures to educate and prepare nurses and other team members to be safe,” says Margo Halm, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, associate chief executive,…
To improve healthcare delivery and eliminate duplication, hospitals are banding together into systems in which specialties such as labor and delivery and smaller surgical cases are performed at satellite hospitals, and larger, more complex procedures are done at the main campus. This is the approach taken at the Cleveland Clinic,…
San Antonio, Texas, played host to the 2018 OR Business Management Conference (ORBMC), attended by more than 400 surgical services leaders, business managers, and industry leaders from across the US. Attendees chose from a menu of topics—including strategies to increase case volume, efficiency, and data transparency, right-size the OR, and…
The rapid growth in outpatient procedures presents exciting opportunities for leaders at ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), but also the challenge of accommodating a higher volume and more specialties without sacrificing efficiency and patient safety. That’s why it’s important not to lose sight of the fundamentals in managing an ASC, whether…
When launching a new ambulatory surgery center (ASC), owners must consider a myriad of issues—financing, design, building construction or purchase, regulatory compliance, certification, staffing, and marketing. Underlying all of these considerations are which procedures the center will provide and whether the ASC will be single specialty, like gastrointestinal (GI) or…
Healthcare mergers and acquisitions are becoming as common as add-on cases in the OR, with hospitals struggling to stay profitable in a financially challenging environment. Between 2008 and 2014, the United States had nearly 400 hospital mergers and acquisitions (M&A), with more than 750 hospitals being acquired or merged. “It’s…
Uncertainty was the defining characteristic of the healthcare industry in 2017 as regulatory changes were proposed, rejected, revised, or tabled for now. The individual insurance mandate was repealed as part of a year-end tax reform bill—a victory for an administration that favors deregulation, but also a change that is projected…
The Best in OR Business Award will be presented to Karlene Power, MSN, BSN, RN, at the 2018 OR Business Management Conference in San Antonio on February 1. Power already has been recognized for her outstanding work at Banner Health in Phoenix, where she is system executive director, perioperative service…
The migration of total joint replacements for knees and hips from inpatient hospital ORs to hospital outpatient departments and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) is spreading. On November 1, 2017, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) bolstered the trend when it approved the removal of total knee arthroplasty (TKA)…
