MResult Healthcare Insights

We are very excited to be co-presenting our Pre-Admissions Screening Program at next week’s NALTH conference in Washington D.C. Our CEO Yann will be attending and we’ll have a demo version of the application available. If you are attending the conference and would like to meet please feel free to contact us.

We recently completed a workshop with one of our hospital clients on social networking and fund raising. The question was how to utilize social networks to help support fund raising for a new breast cancer center, and the purpose of the workshop was to help set up a structure for coordinating future activities. Social networking is just another communication channel and as you would expect efforts in this area need to be coordinated with efforts in other channels.

In this case the customer has already committed to a full calendar of promotional events, so a “1-2-3″ combination makes perfect sense; Prior to each event use social media channels to generate hype and drive traffic, after each event use the same social media channels to gather feedback and drive traffic to the website for online donations and other calls to action. A simple but very effective model that can be used elsewhere.

Excellent posting on GreisGuide to LTACs about the resumed rollout of CMS’s recovery audit contractor (RAC) program plus further details of the RAC program. The post outlines some differences between the RAC demonstration program and how it will work moving forward. The changes tilt a little more favorably towards provider, but preparing for RACs will still require a big dedication in time and resource.

RAC Program Proceeds; Bid Protest Withdrawn by way of GreisGuide to LTACHs.

This week the New York Times carried an article with an in-depth, and at times critical look at long term acute care hospitals. In some ways the article paints unfair comparisons between LTCs and “normal” acute care – for example LTCs have higher complication rates than acute care, but after all they do see sicker patients!

Overall though the article does provide an excellent view into the necessary business drivers behind LTACs as well as some of the unique issues they address.

Long-Term Care Hospitals Face Little Scrutiny by way of NYtimes.com

From Business Week, Steve McKee writes that Social Media Marketing is nothing new, just a digital form of “word of mouth marketing”. I particularly appreciate his likening Twitter to “a giant online cocktail party”, with the attendant rules of engagement.

Social Media Is Nothing New – by way of BusinessWeek.com.

Having a domain name that lines up with your online campaigns can be a major factor in increasing your campaign’s success, according to this article from the MediaPost. Many users use URLs almost like search engines – so called “direct navigation”, where people open a browser, type in a name and expect to find the correct Web site and content, remains the No. 1 Web navigation technique.

We’ve talked about the importance of key word research to aid in pay per click and search engine optimization. Add domain-name selection to the list. At the end of the day you need to know what words your customers use when they are looking for your services.

How Much Are Domain Names For Campaigns Worth?

Here’s an interesting interview with Steve Garske – vice president and CIO Children’s Hospital Los Angeles – on Social Media. His hospital has seen a positive return on investment with the social media work they’ve done, particularly in fund raising and recruiting.

Establishing a social media presence enabled one CIO to expand his organization’s reach and realize a healthy ROI, from healthcare-informatics.com.

As part of our involvement with HIMSS I’ve been participating in that organization’s review and comment on the proposed HIT certification criteria. In last week’s panel review the topic of “Site” vs. “Product” certification came up.  A “Site” certification would certify that a provider or hospital site is able to demonstrate all of the  required criteria – not necessarily through a single product but potentially through a set of individual modules or standalone applications. This would give them the flexibility to assemble systems based on individual “best of breed” components, or leverage technology investments they’ve already made, rather than invest in a single vendor’s product.

I was surprised by how much push back there was to this on the call. And the push back did not come from the vendors, who you would think would be vested in pushing their “all in one” solutions. The push back came from the physicians who complained that a lack of interoperability between components would make any kind of “hybrid” solution like that completely unworkable. One doctor called it a “consultant’s dream”.

He’s right about the difficulties, though I do think that requiring a single product solution is the wrong way to go. We recommend our clients engage in a discovery phase before spending any money on a HIT solution. Before beginning you need to have your arms around your specific business and clinical goals as well as the ongoing “hidden” costs of training and support. For institutions considering a “best of breed” approach, mapping requirements against systems and identifying all of the potential data exchanges can help guard against unpleasant surprises.

- Chris Shafer

As a follow up to last week’s post on bundled payments, here is a link to an interesting policy paper from the National Institute for Health Care Reform that discusses the ins and outs of a bundled payment plan based on Episodes of Care. Many issues to address, including

• What should constitute an episode of care?
• Striking the right balance between financial incentives and risks
• Adjusting payments based on case mix and quality
• Strategies for phased implementation

As mentioned before, bundling brings both pros and cons. But if post care facilities are going to be compensated based on pre-defined services tied to specific diagnosis, they’ll need to be sure they have in place systems to ensure that those diagnosis are correct.

Episode-Based Payments: Charting a Course for Health Care Payment Reform

Jason Greis is a health care attorney who writes on industry news and legislation pertaining to LTACHs. He has an interesting take on the question of Acute-Care and Post-Acute Care Payment Bundling and some of the potential unintended consequences this could bring about.

We’re interested from the standpoint of admission criteria. If acute care hospitals are going to be responsible for managing post acute placement then its more critical than ever that the admitting criteria for different post acute care venues be clearly defined, and the lines of communication between acute and post acute care facilities be as open as possible.

Exploring the Potential Benefits and Drawbacks of Acute-Care and Post-Acute Care Payment Bundling by way of GreisGuide to LTACHs