Quality, cost efficiency, the new quality-cost imperative: systemwide improvements can yield financial gains.
The need to focus internally on cost management has largely replaced the revenue growth model of the past two decades and the external pursuit of opportunities for market and service expansion, according to Stephen R Mayfield, DHA, senior vice president of quality and performance improvement for the American Hospital Association. Outside financial pressure from primarily uncontrollable forces--the potential bundling of Medicare reimbursements to hospitals and nonpayments for readmissions and adverse events, to name a few--have compelled healthcare organizations to spend more time looking inward to finetune existing capabilities. As a result, quality improvement is evolving into a strategy for fiscal stability as well as a critical priority in itself.
Susan
S
Birk
D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000191:economics*