One of the biggest challenges today for healthcare organizations is improving care quality while reducing costs.
Here are nine hospitals and health systems that have recently been involved with innovative and unique projects to improve their financial position.
• Kuakini Medical Center in Honolulu signed an efficiency services agreement with an energy financing company to install $5.8 million in energy upgrades. The project is expected to save more than $1 million annually in electricity and natural gas savings.
• Executives at Miami Children's Hospital reduced the "theoretical prices" on its chargemasters so consumers will have a more reliable reference point for their out-of-pocket costs.
• University of Utah Health Care in Salt Lake City created the Value-Driven Outcomes initiative, a project that brings together leaders from various departments such as quality improvement, biomedical informatics and IT to create a tool to help their university and other healthcare providers understand the true cost of care.
• Omaha, Neb.-based Methodist Health System revamped its revenue cycle by constructing a map for ICD-10.
• Houston Methodist implemented a data integration effort and training program to improve front-end insurance coverage verification, which ultimately decreased denied payments by $7.2 million during a 10-month period.
• Englewood, Colo.-based Catholic Health Initiatives, Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare and Minneapolis-based Fairview Health Services agreed to become majority investor members of Excelera Corp., a national specialty pharmacy network.
• Greenwich (Conn.) Hospital implemented a retro commissioning program, which made changes to the organization's heating plan, cooling plan, air handling systems, exhaust and makeup air systems, lighting and other systems. The program paid for itself in less than six months and is providing the hospital $304,000 per year in estimated electric savings.
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