2012 Year in Review (Part 2 of 4)

Alternative Healthcare Delivery Systems

 

• The concept of the medical home is an old one, developed in the 1960s for the pediatric population, but lately has grown in popularity. It hopes to provide for patients comprehensive, coordinated care for the whole person. The for transforming the organization of healthcare as the ACA begins to take shape.
• Do you necessarily have to be in the hospital to get the best care for your condition? with their Hospital at Home ® program.
•  Seekers of acute care have . For the sake of convenience, many choose the emergency department over all other options. Viable alternatives to emergency room care exist and will flourish as long as there is the drive to cost-contain.
•  Eggs and milk are not the only things on the shopping list. Thanks to retail clinics,. Preventive care, vaccines in particular, are accounting for more and more visits in retail clinics.

 

Healthcare Quality

 

• The traditional method of physician reimbursement has been challenged as pay-for-performance and quality measures have been given the proverbial seat at the table. They have found in Taiwan that although the initial results of a P4P system appears promising, further analysis shows .
•  As the cost of healthcare continues to sky-rocket, the government and insurers will continue to search for creative ways to harness costs. In Finland,
• The debate on work hours for physicians in training and its effect on medical mistakes has been well documented and hotly debated for well over a decade.   as a recent study was able to illustrate the poor process measures of diabetic care between residents and physicians.
• Despite spending more per capita on healthcare than any other nation, the United States remains in the middle of the pack for many important health markers. One area where the US can breath a sigh of relief is in.
• Financial incentives such as Medicare’s National Demonstration project has been shown to produce hospitals.
• and at times lower quality in all facets of business – – including health care.
•  depending on implementation, time lapse, or both. There was increased adherence to treatment guidelines with meaningful use.
• A look at pay-for-performance, ten years after its introduction, begs the question, , or is quality care driven by factors beyond providers’ control?”
• A new and and incentivize preventive care more so than the current Pay-for-Performance model.
• Pay-for-performance is not only taking a foothold here in the United States, but also in an appreciable amount of in the world.

by Nii Darko, DO, MBA and Renée Volny, DO, MBA