Cooperating for better care.

CVS Health

Tag Archives

athenahealth CEO: Hospitals need to focus on network

network

Jonathan Bush, athenahealth founder and CEO, writes here about how the future of the hospital is in the network.

He writes: “The vast majority of hospitals need to redefine themselves from organizations that deliver care to organizations that orchestrate care. Even though hospitals are one of the core lines of lifeblood in healthcare, the way in which the majority of them operate aren’t appealing to patients today, nor is it sustainable to hospitals’ future existence.”

“{O}ur {healthcare} system is so broken that it’s turned this instrument  {the hospital} of health and humanity into a walled citadel. To better serve the patients who are seemingly already going elsewhere, hospitals need to become a leading orchestrator of the very best care on behalf of patients.”

The folks at New York-based Mount Sinai seem to get it. Last year, readers of The New York Times were treated to a Mount Sinai marketing campaign headline that read, ‘If our beds are filled, it means we’ve failed.’It’s counterintuitive, but spot on. Mount Sinai has embraced the idea that ‘instead of receiving care that’s isolated and intermittent, patients [should] receive care that’s continuous and coordinated, much of it outside of the traditional hospital setting.’ It’s only with this shift away from a ‘filling beds’ mindset, combined with a refactoring to the way in which a hospital interacts with other players in the market, that hospitals will maintain a leading role across the care continuum.”

He urges:

Embracing the “requirement to leverage an infrastructure of cross-continuum connectedness and total cost and quality transparency. Software alone won’t get hospitals there; being part of a more connected national network is critical.”

Adopting “savvier consumer marketing that helps hospitals stand out amidst emerging players in healthcare — like CVS Health and Walgreens — who understand the consumer mindset and have built their brands around convenience and ease.”

Accepting that a “new era of hospital sales must emerge, working with insurers and employers to broker deals that send the right patients through your doors only for the services you do really well.”

Realizing that “successful hospitals will create a renaissance of accessibility: If you can’t provide an appointment slot served up via a mobile app for every procedure type within three days, you’re failing.”

Understanding that  “hospitals should become ecosystem partners, not brick-and-mortar investors. This means eliminating anything that can be done in a primary care practice, a retail clinic, or at home, and exporting non-invasive surgery out of the hospital to more cost-effective specialized surgical centers.”


CVS unit to offer vets same-day urgent-care visits in Calif. pilot

 

Amid an effort to reduce  long wait times for many  military veterans served by the Department of Veterans Affairs,  which have aroused much controversy, the VA Health Care System is launching an initiative at its Palo Alto, Calif., branch with CVS Health to give veterans access to same-day appointments, reports Becker’s Hospital Review.

“The urgent-care pilot {program} will give more than 60,000 veterans in Northern California access to CVS’  for acute-care services, such as treatment for common illnesses and minor injuries, as well as some preventive services like screenings, smoking cessation and contraceptive care,” Becker’s reported.


athenahealth CEO on redefining hospitals’ roles in networks

network

–Graphic by Barrett Lyon

Jonathan Bush, founder and CEO of athenahealth, explains here why the future of the hospital is as part of a network.

.”…The vast majority of hospitals need to redefine themselves from organizations that deliver care to organizations that orchestrate care. Even though hospitals are one of the core lines of lifeblood in healthcare, the way in which the majority of them operate aren’t appealing to patients today, nor is it sustainable to hospitals’ future existence.”

“….{H}ospitals are the places where we see medical breakthroughs; where we find we are stronger, braver and more powerful than we think. In short, they are the places where humanity often shines at its brightest. However, our system is so broken that it’s turned this instrument of health and humanity into a walled citadel. To better serve the patients who are seemingly already going elsewhere, hospitals need to become a leading orchestrator of the very best care on behalf of patients.”

He recommends:

“First is the requirement to leverage an infrastructure of cross-continuum connectedness and total cost and quality transparency. Software alone won’t get hospitals there; being part of a more connected national network is critical.

“Second, hospitals need to embrace savvier consumer marketing that helps them stand out amidst emerging players in healthcare — like CVS Health and Walgreens — who understand the consumer mindset and have built their brands around convenience and ease.

“Third, a new era of hospital sales must emerge, working with insurers and employers to broker deals that send the right patients through your doors only for the services you do really well.

“Fourth, the successful hospitals will create a renaissance of accessibility: If you can’t provide an appointment slot served up via a mobile app for every procedure type within three days, you’re failing.

“And fifth, hospitals should become ecosystem partners, not brick-and-mortar investors. This means eliminating anything that can be done in a primary care practice, a retail clinic, or at home, and exporting non-invasive surgery out of the hospital to more cost-effective specialized surgical centers.”

 


Contact Info

info@cmg625.com

(617) 230-4965

Wellesley, Mass