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The evolution of the hospital meeting on reducing spending and improving quality

We have had 3 of these meetings so far at our hospital, and so far the interest level has been high, and the ideas have been good.  This next meeting, this coming Tuesday, catches me just after returning from Haiti, and may be losing some momentum, what with the recent passage of the health care reform package.

I would propose at this meeting to do several things.

First, I think that we should at least discuss gathering cost data for the hospital. I would like to know what the average patient or patient's insurance company is billed for various diagnoses, as an inpatient and in the emergency room. I would like to know how much the hospital actually gets paid.  I would like to know how much uncompensated care is delivered, and would like to see what impact health care reform has over the next year. I know this kind of data is sensitive, but without it we are working in the dark.

I would like to go over the provisions of the health care reform package in a little more detail to see what impact we might expect to see from it, and what changes we might need to make in order for the impact to be positive.

I would like to discuss the idea of having quality and cost case conferences to see where money is being spent and evaluate what the impact of some of the most expensive procedures really seems to be.

I would like to discuss ways we can support primary care doctors in caring for their patients with the aim of keeping non-emergency patients out of the emergency room.

I would like to start thinking of continuing medical education presentations that address cost effective treatment of common conditions.

I would hope to continue to gather ideas from doctors and staff about perceived waste, so that we can focus our money and effort in directions that matter, and I would like to go over the ideas we have had so far and see where we are with respect to putting them in action.

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