Skip to main content

Alternative Approaches To Leveling Our Cathedrals

From Dr. Westby Fisher via MedCity News: "Hospitals expand for future patients… who may not be able to afford care."
"It doesn’t take many Betz cells to know what will happen when employers who presently pay $8,000-$9,000 per employee for health care benefits suddenly get the opportunity to pay a $2,000-per-employee “fine.” Do the math: for an employer with 3,000 employees, they pay about $65.5 million for the health care benefits they’re currently providing compared to a $6 million dollar “fine.” Seems like a nearly 10-fold savings to me! Now THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is one heck of a beneficial fine!"
I can hear the Board chair now: "You mean that $200 million bed tower, justified on the thinnest of research about consumers preferring private rooms, might actually open to...NO demand?"

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Michael Porter On Health Care Reform

Michael Porter, writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, proposes "A Strategy For Health Care Reform - Toward A Value-Based System." His proposals are fundamental, lucid and right-on, meaning they're sure to be opposed by some parties to the debate, the so-called "Yes, but..." crowd. Most important, in my opinion, is this: "... electronic medical records will enable value improvement, but only if they support integrated care and outcome measurement. Simply automating current delivery practices will be a hugely expensive exercise in futility. Among our highest near-term priorities is to finalize and then continuously update health information technology (HIT) standards that include precise data definitions (for diagnoses and treatments, for example), an architecture for aggregating data for each patient over time and across providers, and protocols for seamless communication among systems. "Finally, consumers must become much mor...
Post a Comment
Read more

Simplicity From Complexity

Health care planners typically juggle many different services and businesses, each with unique customers, competitors and prospects.  The complexity can be overwhelming.  So-called portfolio models for assessing industry attractiveness and competitive strength can be a good analytical jumping-off point, including the McKinsey-GE 9-box matrix . (Click on the "Launch Interactive" link.)
Post a Comment
Read more

5 Marketing Megatrends

Coming to a brand near you, from Adam Kleinberg at iMedia Connection, here are " 5 marketing megatrends you can't ignore ." Mass collaboration... Constant connectivity... Globalization... Pervasive distrust in big corporations... A global sense of urgency... #4 is, I think, under-appreciated in health care. Doctors and hospitals like to think of themselves as the last of the white hat-wearing good guys, and maybe they are. But trust is a funny thing - built over decades and lost overnight. Screw it up and watch the laser beam of populist rage move from Wall Street to Medical Avenue.
Post a Comment
Read more