Two weeks ago, members of my senior management team and I traveled to Orlando to attend the 2012 Spring IDN Summit. Before the summit officially kicked off, I sat down with supply chain leaders at some of the top healthcare organizations in the country to get their insight and feedback about their healthcare transportation needs. The conversation was fast and furious and a number of themes emerged. (Italicized comments below were contributed by participants and taken directly from a transcript of our session together.)
The new year encourages us to make a few predictions and set goals for the coming year. As 2012 gets underway, I think it’s safe to say we all expect it to be another demanding year in healthcare.
HealthLeaders recently posted an article titled “4 Unpleasant Predictions for 2012.” While I’m not sure we want to start off the New Year with unpleasantness, a realistic approach is crucial. Using HealthLeaders’ annual survey, as well as her own conversations with healthcare CFOs, the author, Karen Minich-Pourshadi made her predictions for the top concerns facing healthcare financial leaders in 2012.
Those of us in the industry are well aware of the enormous challenges facing U.S. healthcare, but probably no one feels these impending changes more than healthcare CEOs. Recently, Huron Healthcare conducted interviews with hospital CEOs to determine the top five issues keeping them up at night. As reported in Healthcare Finance News last month, the burning issues are:
1. Change management: With the amount of market-driven and reform-driven change affecting healthcare providers, CEOs are troubled by how they can prioritize
An industry survey conducted by HealthLeaders, entitled “Better Care and the Bottom Line,” recently caught my eye. As part of the survey, HealthLeaders asked 289 healthcare executives what they believe are the major drivers of waste in healthcare today and what they believe can help fix the problem. The respondents listed the following as the key contributors to waste:
- Operational inefficiency
- Overutilization of services
- Lack of system integration