Hospital Cost Accounting: Saving Lives and Saving on Costs

Within an industry constantly pursuing accuracy, a cost accounting system that addresses the ongoing concerns of saving money and increasing efficiency is a must. Now more than ever, hospitals require reliable information to combat the conflicting relationship between an increase in spending on new instruments and specialized staff, but a decrease in funding. This project explores potential avenues to find a successful cost accounting method using past research, analysis of hospitals’ current environments, and expert opinions from hospital and healthcare personnel. Each hospital is different based on their environment, surrounding population, type of services provided, and personal demands. This study seeks to contribute to previous studies attempting to debunk the navigation process for each hospital looking to find their cost accounting perfect match and where sights should be set on in the future

Health Information Exchange Adoption and Patient Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Organizational Efficiency

Patient satisfaction is perceived as a significant benefit of hospitals’ investments in health information exchange (HIE). Successful implementation of HIE systems lead to increased organizational efficiency in hospitals and more likely to enable doctors and other staff members to better meet patient needs and expectations. This research draws upon system success theory to examine how HIE adoption affects patient satisfaction. In addition, this research investigates whether the relationship between HIE adoption and patient satisfaction is mediated by organizational efficiency. This is the first research study that draws upon system success theory to understand how HIE adoption affects patient satisfaction. For this study, the dataset was developed by integrating data from the Healthcare Cost Report Information System and the Hospital Compare data from the Medicare.gov website. It contained data from 2,459 U.S. acute care hospitals. Regression models were used to empirically validate relationships between HIE adoption and patient satisfaction. A three-step analysis was used to test the mediation effect. Results of this study indicates that HIE adoption positively impacts hospital efficiency. In addition, hospital efficiency positively influences patient satisfaction. Furthermore, the results validate the mediation role of hospital efficiency and suggest that HIE adoption indirectly affects patient satisfaction through hospital efficiency. HIE adoption leads to healthcare information system success (organizational efficiency), which in turn increases patient satisfaction

Activity-based management accounting in the health care sector, with specific reference to private hospital groups in South Africa

ThesisThe health care sector, worldwide, is characterised by increasing patient loads, more complex procedures - and ever-increasing medical costs, with the cost of hospitalisation being the predominant cost factor absorbing the most resources. Leyenaar (1997: 14) maintains that the health care market has shifted from revenue to a cost focus. Increases in private hospital cost of between 13 and 15 percent at the beginning of 1999 were, according to Bisseker (1999: I), not justified, especially in the light of the healthy fmancial results achieved by many of the listed private hospital groups. Administrators of large medical aid schemes and of managed care companies are having great difficulty in explaining these increases to their members. Member contributions increased by as much as 20 percent, this despite promises that managed care would bring these costs under control (Bisseker, 1999: I ). Another problem facing South African hospitals is currencY related. Since the beginning of 1999, the Rand has lost a great deal of ground against foreign currencies, making it very expensive for hospitals to purchase any medical equipment from the overseas market. Hospitals purchase much of their technologically advanced equipment and medication from foreign countries and with the depreciating Rand, these items become even more expensive. The hospitals must bring this currencY component into their pricing policies. Another factor contributing to the recessionary climate existing in South Africa is one of medical inflation. Medical inflation rates have, over the past few years been much higher than the average inflation rate. An increased emphasis on cost management and cost contaimnent in hospitals, together with managed health care, has created an urgent need amongst health care providers for relevant, accurate, timeous and meaningful cost information (Williams, 1997: 16). In this regard Canby (1995:51) is of the opinion that by tracing healthcare activities and costs back to the events that generate and cause the cost, and by focusing on the process that drives cost, a more accurate measurement of financial information and performance is obtained. This, in tum, will enable private hospital groups to make necessary price changes only if these changes are justified by the information obtained from the new system. The health care industry may use the ABC technique, developed by manufacturing organisations to enhance their profitability, eliminate unnecessary costs and plan for change (Schuneman, 1997: I). This technique, which identifies the relationship between the activity and the source needed to complete it, can thus also be applied successfully to the medical practice. Hospital management systems may use all the components associated with ABMA to effectively control, plan, administer and monitor the activities and resources in the hospital

Working Together Toward Better Health Outcomes

Healthcare organizations and community-based organizations (CBOs) that provide human services are partnering in shared pursuit of better health outcomes. The Partnership for Healthy Outcomes – Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF), the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS), and the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities (Alliance), with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) – set out to capture and analyze the lessons emerging in this dynamic space. Information from more than 200 partnerships serving all 50 US states provide important lessons from, and for, partnerships that hope to improve access to care, address health inequities, and make progress on social issues like food, education, and housing

Accountable Care Organizations in California: Promise and Performance

California has more accountable care organizations (ACOs) than any other state in the country, with particularly rapid growth over the past two years. This report introduces new evidence that ACOs improve the quality of care, increase patient satisfaction, and may reduce costs

Norton Healthcare: A Strong Payer-Provider Partnership for the Journey to Accountable Care

Examines the progress of an integrated healthcare delivery system in forming an accountable care organization with payer partners as part of the Brookings-Dartmouth ACO Pilot Program, including a focus on performance measurement and reporting

Framework of Social Customer Relationship Management in E-Health Services

Healthcare organization is implementing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as a strategy for managing interactions with patients involving technology to organize, automate, and coordinate business processes. Web-based CRM provides healthcare organization with the ability to broaden service beyond its usual practices in achieving a complex patient care goal, and this paper discusses and demonstrates how a new approach in CRM based on Web 2.0 or Social CRM helps healthcare organizations to improve their customer support, and at the same time avoiding possible conflicts, and promoting better healthcare to patients. A conceptual framework of the new approach will be proposed and highlighted. The framework includes some important features of Social CRM such as customer's empowerment, social interactivity between healthcare organization-patients, and patients-patients. The framework offers new perspective in building relationships between healthcare organizations and customers and among customers in e-health scenario. It is developed based on the latest development of CRM literatures and case studies analysis. In addition, customer service paradigm in social network's era, the important of online health education, and empowerment in healthcare organization will be taken into consideration.Comment: 15 pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1204.3689, arXiv:1203.3919, arXiv:1204.3685, arXiv:1203.4309, arXiv:1204.3691, arXiv:1203.392

Patient Satisfaction in the Spanish National Health Service: Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling

The aim of this article was to determine which key indicators influence patient satisfaction with the Spanish NHS to provide useful information for policy decision-making. A total of 33 variables for each of the 17 Spanish autonomous communities were collected from the statistical portal of the Spanish Ministry of Health, Social Services, and Equality between 2005 and 2016. A cross-sectional study was applied using Partial Least Squares to a Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM). The influence of expenditures, resource allocation, and safety were hypothesized about patient satisfaction. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and life expectancy were used as control variables. Moreover, the influence of resource allocation on use was tested. The model explained 57.1% of patient satisfaction with the Spanish NHS. It was positively influenced mainly by resource allocation and expenditures, followed by safety and life expectancy. Additionally, resources directly influenced the level of use. The number of hospital beds, hemodialysis equipment, rate of adverse drug reactions, and expenditure positively influenced patient satisfaction. In contrast, the number of posts in day hospitals, the hospital infection rate, and the percentage of pharmacy spending negatively influenced patient satisfaction