How to Reduce Costs While Increasing Volumes in Your Hospital Surgery Service
Collierville, TN (PRWEB) August 04, 2013 -- The financial pressures facing hospital executives are severe – and worsening. With bad debt issues, government funding cuts, decreasing inpatient volumes, increasing patient acuity levels, and escalating costs for staff, supplies, and materials, it can be a daily challenge to keep the hospital doors open.
Add to that the Affordable Care Act’s game-changing payment methodology which ties providers’ pay directly to the quality and cost of care. As the new payment strategy shifts a portion of Medicare funds away from providers (both physicians and hospitals) that are deemed to be high-cost relative to peers, and toward those with lower costs, being on the winning side of this equation has never been more important.
Richard Doss, a Senior Advisor at LifeWings, offers this perspective, "The issue is simply that hospitals that ignore these changes, that don't plan collaboratively for how to handle the changes that are just around the corner - will not survive the new pressures the ACA has in store for them."
To compete for incentive revenue (and avoid penalty) – and indeed to keep the institution solvent – hospitals and surgical teams will need to:
• Increase efficiency of care delivery to reduce costs while increasing capacity
• Maintain or increase the quality of patient care on targeted measures
• Establish systems for benchmarking and tracking their internal performance on target variables
• Align with physicians more closely
In the midst of these pressures and changes, Crew Resource Management can be a powerful methodology for hospitals and their surgical services to reduce costs, increase capacity and volume while improving the quality of care.
LifeWings Partners LLC assists hospitals and clinics to implement high-reliability systems to assure quality of patient care and efficiencies in care delivery. LifeWings uses Crew Resource Management (CRM) principles to assure greater standardization of care delivery because that yields reduced costs and increased capacity while preparing hospitals to respond to various quality initiatives.
The principles of Crew Resource Management, developed in high-risk/high-reliability industries, include a focus on team-based decision making, communication, situational awareness, and the routine usage of checklists, standardized handoffs, algorithms, and protocols. CRM-based team training has an excellent track record in overcoming communication and collaboration causes of adverse events in such high-risk/high-reliability industries as aviation, nuclear power, military operations – and, more recently, hospital care. With CRM’s emphasis on standardized processes and continuous quality improvement, hospitals using CRM have realized efficiencies that have resulted in additional capacity, reduced staff costs, and fewer errors and the resulting malpractice suits.
About LifeWings
LifeWings Partners creates documented, sustainable improvements in cost reduction, efficiency, reliability, safety, and quality by combining the best of Lean and TeamSTEPPS. LifeWings has improved the financial bottom line and patient safety record of over 140 hospitals worldwide. The LifeWings coaching cadre of pilots, astronauts, physicians, nurses and Toyota-trained Lean experts train more than 13,000 administrators, physicians and staff per year. Measurable results are guaranteed in all LifeWings’ initiatives. Documented return on investment typically exceeds 300%. To find out more, please visit http://www.saferpatients.com or https://www.facebook.com/LifeWingsSaferPatients.
Video about LifeWings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV_M0zIuan8.
Stephen Harden, Lifewings Partners, LLC, 901-457-7505, [email protected]
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