Huron Consulting Group, a provider of business consulting services, today announced its new healthcare report that gives CEOs in the challenging healthcare field advice about best practices “for leading their organizations through this time of significant change in the industry,” according to a businesswire.com press release.
“Leading Through Transformation: Top Healthcare CEOs' Perspectives on the Future of Healthcare, Insights from the Huron Healthcare CEO Forum” discusses issues at the heart of all medical practices from ways to change from making money by treating lots of patients to treating patients in smart, cost-effective ways, to coping with significantly reduced reimbursement rates.
The U.S. spends far more on health care than any other nation. In 2009, health care costs soared to $2.5 trillion, nearly 17 percent of the GDP, according to the Institute of Medicine.
The press release reports that CEOs and executives from outside the healthcare industry participated in the second annual Huron Healthcare CEO Forum, where the report was released.
"The immense operational and financial challenges healthcare leaders are facing would be daunting for executives in any industry. And yet healthcare leaders across the country are stepping up to the challenge, carefully considering the way forward, and developing solutions that will shape the future of healthcare delivery in our country," said Gordon Mountford, executive vice president, Huron Healthcare, in the press release. "The Forum provides hospital CEOs an opportunity to exchange ideas and share ways to enhance quality and improve affordability of healthcare."
The Huron report discusses “Moving from Volume to Value: Making the New Healthcare Business Model a Reality,” acknowledging that healthcare providers “will require a fundamentally different approach to the way healthcare is delivered in the U.S.”
"We are definitely moving toward fixed or bundled payment and away from making margin on volume. The old strategy is quickly becoming the high cost/low margin strategy. Unfortunately, we get to run these two opposing strategies simultaneously. You can live in two business models for a while, but not forever," said Dan Wolterman, president and CEO, Memorial Hermann Healthcare System in Houston, Texas, in the press release.
The report also focuses on is how to re-imagine “the care delivery model in ways that make care more efficient and effective,” according to the press release.
"Hospitals need to provide many different access points throughout the community so that patients can seek care in more convenient locations at times that make sense for them. Once the patient presents at any access point, the system's goal then becomes delivering the right care in the appropriate setting for each individual patient. Where it's appropriate, more and more care will be delivered by providers other than doctors," said Dean Harrison, president and CEO, Northwestern Memorial HealthCare in Chicago, Ill., and chair of the Huron Healthcare CEO Forum, in the press release.
The third area where physicians need to involve themselves is in “remaking the healthcare delivery system.”
"We use the Mayo dyad model to create what I call 'healthy friction.' We have to emphasize in that pairing, it's not that one physician is solely looking at things operationally, and one looking at things solely clinically. They have to work together," Bryan Mills, president and CEO, Community Health Network in Indianapolis, Ind., was quoted as saying in the press release.
And finally, reducing use and over-treatment are the only way to contain costs, the report spelled out.
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Deborah DiSesa Hirsch is an award-winning health and technology writer who has worked for newspapers, magazines and IBM in her 20-year career. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Rich Steeves
