Why is it that in times of economic stress, some hospitals manage through with strength to spare while others fall? While it may be tempting to say that those hospitals that thrive have the best payer mix or the most profitable service lines, often the deciding factor is the leadership’s commitment to core principles of sound financial management. The trick is that there is no trick.

In this HealthLeaders Media Breakthroughs report, four leading hospital systems—Banner Health, Southwest General Health Center, The University of Kansas Hospital, and Parkland Health & Hospital System—share the lessons they have learned to help them:

• Identify cost-cutting measures that also add value to care efficiency
• Make strategic investments in areas under your control
• Refocus on the fundamentals of financial discipline

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The current relationship between hospitals and physicians has been built around rewarding for volume of services and not quality. That model is breaking down as reformers in Washington have hospital and physician inefficiency in their sights, with Medicare pushing toward value-based purchasing and experimenting with a payment system that rewards a system of coordinated care.

In this HealthLeaders Media Breakthroughs report, four leading hospital systems—Gundersen Lutheran Health System, Sanford Health-MeritCare, SSM Health Care and Virginia Mason Medical Center—share the lessons they have learned to help them:

• Build physician input into the highest levels of the organization
• Get physicians and administrative leaders to use the same language
• Use more than one physician model toward the same goal
• Start the steps to sharing risk, and rewards for quality of care

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The next HealthLeaders Media Breakthroughs report on Personalized Medicine profiles four progressive healthcare organizations that are paving the way for personalized care.

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