HealthLeaders offers a look at issues and trends that are shaping the business of healthcare in the United States today. Free to download.
Commercial Bundles
June 2017
With premiums on the rise and commercial payers interested in increasing the value return on their healthcare investment, more payers are considering value-based care arrangements.
While CMS has led the charge to use bundled payments for joint replacements through the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) and Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) program, there is increasing interest in these arrangements from the payer market.
As payers and providers begin to anticipate and plan for the change,it’s important to study bundled payments from a variety of angles looking at cost variations by region, market, provider type, and payers.
The Truven Health Analytics™ 15 Top Health Systems study is an ongoing research project that is adjusted as changes occur in the healthcare environment, newly public data and metrics become available, and managerial practices evolve.
The Truven Health Analytics™ 15 Top Health Systems measures relative balanced performance across a range of organizational key performance indicators— reflecting care quality, use of evidence-based medicine, postdischarge outcomes, operational efficiency, and customer perception of care. This analysis provides valuable guidance to health system boards and executives who use these critical, quantitative performance insights to adjust continuous improvement targets,ensure the collaboration of member hospitals, and achieve systemwide alignment on common performance goals.
Winners of the Truven Health Analytics™ 100 Top Hospitals® designation demonstrate how effective leaders manage change and achieve excellence in a dynamic environment. Using the measures presented in our National Balanced Scorecard, this year’s 100 Top Hospitals® study revealed significant differences between award winners and their nonwinning peers.
The nation’s top-performing hospitals had lower inpatient mortality, considering patient severity; had fewer patient complications; followed accepted care protocols for stroke care and blood clot prevention; had lower 30-day mortality and 30-day readmission rates; sent patients home sooner; provided more timely emergency care; kept expenses lower, both in-hospital and through the aftercare process; and scored 10 points higher on patient ratings of their overall hospital experience.
Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment Trends
March 2017
Behavioral health and substance abuse treatment costs are rising, along with demand for these services, driven in part by the opioid abuse epidemic. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration projects that by 2020, mental health and substance abuse (MHSA) treatment spending will total $280.5 billion, a 63% increase from 2009.* Increasing utilization of substance abuse services reveals an opportunity to expand treatment and prevention programs in-house or through partnerships. In addition, hospitals and health systems can respond to these rising costs and greater need by ensuring opioid prescribing patterns meet current guidelines and by instituting care management assistance when pain medications are necessary.
