April 2015 Issue of Becker's Hospital Review
On the Cover
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150 Great Places to Work in Healthcare 2015 Becker's Healthcare is pleased to release the 2015 edition of "150 great places to work in healthcare." Click here to continue>> |
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The Way We Work |
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RadioShack’s Fall Highlights New Decisions for Hospitals |
Publisher’s Letter
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Becker's Hospital Review is pleased to present the 2015 edition of "100 hospital and health system CIOs to know." Click here to continue>>
Financial Management
Kaiser Permanente Net Income Soars to $3.1B
Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente has reported strong financials for fiscal year 2014, with its net income increasing to $3.1 billion, up from $2.7 billion the preceding year. Click here to continue>>
Mayo Clinic Posts Highest Operating Margin in More Than 25 Years
Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic reported operating income of $834.3 million in fiscal year 2014, a 36.3 percent increase over its operating income of $612.1 million the previous year. Click here to continue>>
Coming Soon: A Cleveland Clinic Health Plan?
Cleveland Clinic is carefully considering a move into the insurer market. Click here to continue>>
Universal Health Services Q4 Net Income Soars 39% on Higher Volume
King of Prussia, Pa.-based Universal Health Services reported net income of $172.8 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014, up 38.8 percent from $124.5 million for the same period of the prior year. Click here to continue>>
BJC HealthCare Operating Surplus Jumps 59%
BJC HealthCare, a nonprofit system based in St. Louis, posted an operating surplus of $232.5 million for fiscal year 2014, up from $146 million in fiscal 2013. Click here to continue>>
Stagnation With a Chance of Decline: Healthcare’s 5-Year Forecast
Healthcare is in an era of change and that change is only going to become more dramatic in the next five years, according to Jeffrey Bauer, PhD, a health futurist and medical economist. Click here to continue>>
Moody’s: PPACA Challenge Carries Significant Risk for Nonprofit Hospitals
A decision from the U.S. Supreme Court striking down subsidies in the 34 states that did not establish their own health insurance exchanges would have various credit effects on nonprofit hospitals, according to a comment discussion of King v. Burwell from Moody's Investor's Service. Click here to continue>>
How to Shatter the CFO Stereotype
Although the role of CFO has evolved significantly in recent years, many of the stereotypes associated with financial leaders have not. Click here to continue>>
Executive Briefing
How ‘Leaning’ Your EMR Improves Quality, Safety, Efficiency and Regulatory Compliance
We have all had beliefs we held to be true, only to find out at some point in the future that those beliefs were myths. And most of us have experienced or witnessed the crippling effects that the belief "more is better" can have. Click here to continue>>
Hospital M&A
The Year of 95 Hospital Transactions
2014 brought 95 hospital transactions, making it the third consecutive year in which at least 95 hospital transactions were announced, according to a new analysis from Kaufman, Hall & Associates. Click here to continue>>
Tenet, United Surgical Partners Form JV
Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare has signed a definitive agreement to form a joint venture with United Surgical Partners International to create the largest provider of ambulatory surgery in the U.S. Click here to continue>>
Ascension to Purchase Michigan Health Insurer
A subsidiary of St. Louis-based Ascension Health intends to buy U.S. Health and Life Insurance, based in Sterling Heights, Mich., for $50 million, according to a Crain's Detroit Business report. Click here to continue>>
Prime Healthcare Continues Aggressive Growth Strategy
Ontario, Calif.-based Prime Healthcare Services is pushing full force ahead on its growth strategy, announcing it completed the purchase of two hospitals and entered into an agreement to acquire another. Click here to continue>>
CIO Roundtable
5 Hospital, Health System CIOs Discuss Talent Needs, Telemedicine, Goals and Challenges
In part II of this edition of Becker's Hospital Review's CIO roundtable, five hospital and health system CIOs discuss essential skill sets for new talent, developments in telemedicine, biggest goals and challenges ahead for their organizations. Click here to continue>>
Health IT
The Healthcare CIO’s Hiring Playbook
Who are you hiring, and what are you hiring them for? Click here to continue>>
EHR Market Share Varies by Hospital Size
The EHR system a hospital uses varies strongly by the number of beds. Click here to continue>>
Epic Decoded: Life and Corporate Culture at the Center of the Health IT World
When you walk onto Epic Systems' Verona, Wis.-based campus, you're guaranteed to see one thing: people wearing clothes. Click here to continue>>
Interoperability: The New Meaningful Use?
Some see the ONC's Interoperability Roadmap as a daunting proposition —166 pages packed with information that will likely lead to more rules, which may make meaningful use seem like a mere warm-up. Click here to continue>>
Top 10 EHR Vendors by Overall Market Share
Just a small handful of EHR vendors dominate the market share for physician practices. For example, one vendor holds more than 11 percent of the physician practice market share. Click here to continue>>
Top 4 Reasons CIOs Get Fired (And How to Avoid Them)
The responsibilities of a CIO are numerous, and they can have serious consequences if mishandled, especially in the healthcare arena. Click here to continue>>
A Cheatsheet for 25 Health IT Terms
A straightforward guide to some of the hottest terms in health IT. Click here to continue>>
Executive Roundtable
Aligning Your Workforce Strategy With Patient Outcomes
Many hospital and health system executives are in agreement that their role is to serve people, workers and patients alike. Click here to continue>>
Legal
Ebola Nurse Nina Pham Sues Texas Health Resources
Nina Pham, the 26-year-old nurse who contracted Ebola at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas in October 2014, plans to file a lawsuit alleging the hospital violated her privacy and failed to properly train staff to care for patients with Ebola, according to a Dallas Morning News report. Click here to continue>>
Physician Assistant Impostor Treated 137 Patients Before Caught
A woman in Maryland has been sentenced to three years in prison for impersonating a physician assistant and treating and diagnosing 137 infants and children, according to the Department of Justice. Click here to continue>>
Aetna Hits ‘Hotel-Like’ Hospital With $120M Kickback Lawsuit
North Cypress (Texas) Medical Center and its CEO engaged in an illegal kickback scheme and used deceptive billing practices that led Aetna Life Insurance to overpay the physician-owned community hospital by as much as $120 million, according to allegations in a lawsuit filed by the insurer. Click here to continue>>
Government Recovers $2B+ in Healthcare False Claims Actions
Recoveries involving false claims against healthcare programs made up a significant portion of the federal government's total $5.7 billion in civil fraud recoveries in 2014, according to a report from the law firm of Bass, Berry & Sims. Click here to continue>>
HCA Faces False Claims Lawsuit Over Unnecessary Heart Procedures
Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Holdings is facing a lawsuit alleging the for-profit hospital operator subjected patients to medically unnecessary interventional cardiology services and then submitted false claims to government payers for reimbursement, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing by HCA. Click here to continue>>
Physician Affairs
Making the Case for Physician CEOs
In today's healthcare climate, who is best suited to lead? Click here to continue>>
The New Shortage Estimate: US Will Need Up to 90,000 More Physicians by 2025
In the next 10 years, the nation will need between 46,100 and 90,400 physicians, according to an AAMC study released Tuesday. Click here to continue>>
How Hospitals Can Avoid Physician Impostors
It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it makes headlines and puts patients at unnecessary risk: phony physicians treating patients as if they have a valid medical license. Click here to continue>>
Top 10 Medical Schools for Primary Care
U.S. News & World Report released a list of the top 10 medical schools for primary care, based on a survey of 156 accredited medical and osteopathic schools.Click here to continue>>
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New Orleans-based Tulane University School of Medicine and its A.B. Freeman School of Business announced the launch of a new, accelerated MD-MBA program, slated to start this summer. Click here to continue>>
Physicians With Bad News Perceived as Less Compassionate, Study Finds
Patients perceive physicians with optimistic news as more trustworthy and those with less optimistic prognoses as less compassionate, according to a study published last Thursday in JAMA Oncology. Click here to continue>>
Executive Briefing
Do Your Talent Strategies Support a Patient-Centered Culture? 4 Keys to Success
Patient-centered approaches have been shown to improve health status, patient compliance and outcomes, and even reduce the cost of care. Yet, not many hospitals would claim, at this point, that they are truly patient centered. Click here to continue>>
Leadership & Management
5 Pitfalls to Avoid in Managing the Cultural Aspect of Health System Integration
These days it seems every health system is in the middle of a transformation — be it buying, selling or trying to integrate the assets it has amassed over time. Being in the business of transformation, this means we find ourselves invariably and repeatedly answering the question, "What are the big stumbling blocks to avoid?" Click here to continue>>
Academic Medicine’s Gender Gap
Just 20 percent of full-time faculty members in U.S. academic medicine are women, according to a study published in the Journal of Women's Health. Click here to continue>>
Hospital CEO Turnover Down From 2013’s Record High
In 2014, the rate of hospital CEO turnover decreased to 18 percent. Click here to continue>>
How 15 Hospital, Health System CEOs Revitalize Themselves
In the fast-paced, nonstop world of healthcare, work burnout is a real problem and it can be hard to balance work with other life responsibilities. Click here to continue>>
Notes from ACHE: 13 Skills Every Healthcare Leader Should Possess
Certain leadership skills are timeless. However, in healthcare, recent, complex changes resulting from reform and other external factors necessitate the refining of certain skills to be effective. Click here to continue>>
Strategy
7 Strategies for Health Systems to Distinguish Themselves
Healthcare providers can't be all things to all people. It's time to define your organization before someone — or something — else does that for you. Click here to continue>>
RadioShack’s Fall Highlights New Decisions for Hospitals
The bankruptcy of RadioShack and rumored purchase of many of its stores by Amazon illustrate the complex and high-stakes business decisions that today's retail companies need to make. Click here to continue>>
Chuck Lauer: Give Nurses Some Help With Their Heavy Lifts
"I believe that the topic of nursing injuries should be one of the highest priorities any hospital executive should explore immediately and rectify with dispatch. It is simply the right thing to do." Click here to continue>>
The Corner Office: Catholic Health Initiative’s Kevin Lofton on Dog and Pony Shows
Early on in my career...I asked one of the department heads for some advice, since I felt uncertain if I could do my new job. He said something that has stuck with me over all of these years: "It's just another dog and pony show." Click here to continue>>
Hospital & Health System Executive Moves
Hospital & Health System Transactions