Outcomes
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Featured Articles
Market Corner Commentaries
Long-Haul COVID: Real, Complex and Challenging
Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, doctors began seeing puzzling symptoms in patients that lasted well beyond the initial infection period. These COVID long-haulers suffered from distressing or debilitating …
Consumerism
Patient Search Thyself
Yeah, we’ve seen the office signs and coffee mugs. Don’t confuse your Google search with my medical degree. I get it. You’re smart because you went to medical school. We’re …
Dave's Dispatch
Anti-Vaxxer Minds: The Song
President Nixon and Elvis Presley in the Oval Office on December 21, 1970 Photo: Ollie Atkins via National Archives Elvis makes everything better. Even Nixon. Biden’s relentless vaccine rollout continues …
4sight Friday
Podcast: 4sight Friday Roundup, Value-Based Reimbursement Shows Signs of Life, 4/9/21
Value-Based Reimbursement Shows Signs of Life We debated the significance of two new value-based reimbursement agreements on today’s episode of the 4sight Friday Roundup podcast. Here the week’s biggest news …
Market Corner Commentaries
Relief As Appointments Open Up: Stories of the Vax
More first-person stories from the 4sight Health team regarding the COVID-19 vaccine. Into the World Again By Ed Marx Vax Day: Tuesday, January 26, 2021 Location: Texas As news of …
Economics
C-Section Connections, Correlations, Causations and Coincidences
Here at 4sight Health, we’re all about the connection between money and results. As we like to say, you’re not going to get the outcomes you want until you change …
4sight Friday
Podcast: 4sight Friday Roundup, What To Do With Rural Healthcare, 4/2/21
What To Do With Rural Healthcare Rural hospitals are on the brink and along with them are patients’ access to care. We talked about how to make rural healthcare sustainable …
Dave's Dispatch
Mary Brady’s Nursing Home Story: It’s Personal
Tuesday’s Dispatch featured the New York Times devastating investigative report on corruption, malfeasance and failed government oversight in nursing homes. That story hits very close to home. Mary Brady was the …
COVID-19
COVID, Convenience and Consumerism
I’ll say it again. I’ll probably keep saying it because I think I’m right. One of the silver linings from this whole COVID thing will be the boost that it …
Dave's Dispatch
The Sorry State of Nursing Home Star Ratings
Patient Safety Awareness Week was March 14th-20th. On cue, the New York Times released a major investigative report on nursing home corruption, dysfunction, neglect and death. We discussed the report’s …
Consumerism
Pandemic Threats to Patient Safety
ECRI’s latest annual list of the top 10 patient safety concerns got a lot of attention when it was released March 15, and deservedly so as most of the threats …
Outcomes
The Science of Wellness
America was sick before COVID-19 struck. The pandemic has made our national sickness more acute and illustrated the critical importance of “wellness” in preventing disease and optimizing health. We know …
Dave's Dispatch
Getting Scientific About Wellness: Introducing Lee Hood
Three things will last forever — faith, hope and love — and the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 Repurposing for healthcare, this verse becomes: Three things are …
4sight Friday
4sight Friday | Tales from the Vaccine Lines | The Continuing Interoperability Slog | Nursing Homes Seeing Stars
Read 3/19/2021 Edition here. Curated by David Burda, 4sight Health’s news editor and columnist. Columns here. Find 4sight Health and industry opinions and news on market-based change, all with the 4sight …
4sight Friday
Podcast: 4sight Friday Roundup, Buyer Beware? How About Patient Beware, 3/19/21
Buyer Beware? How About Patient Beware We marked Patient Safety Awareness Week on today’s episode of the 4sight Friday Roundup podcast with our takeaways from some shocking patient safety headlines. …
COVID-19
Squared Up & Taking Shots: Our Stories from Vaccination Lines
What do the United Center, a church gymnasium and a community pool have in common? Some folks on the 4sight Health team have had an early look at the vaccine …
Economics
Catching Up on Hospital Interoperability
I admit it. I completely missed the annual report on hospital interoperability from HHS’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology when the ONC released it in January. …
Dave's Dispatch
Silly Holidays and Healthcare
Roses are red. Violets are blue. Canadians have health insurance. And all Americans should too. The Biden Administration got our Valentine. Their massive American Rescue Plan funds these initiatives to …
Outcomes
The Earth Is Sicker, and So Are We: Environmental Change and Worsening Health
“Evolution had left humans ill-suited for their modern environment.” —Barton Child, MD The environment has a profound effect on our health and well-being. Massachusetts General Hospital Chief of Medicine Dr. …
Consumerism
Rethinking COVID-19 and Healthcare Consumerism
One of my working theories is that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated healthcare consumerism as peoples’ fear of contracting a deadly virus is greater than their fear of navigating the …
Burda on Healthcare
What Healthcare AI Adoption and the Old Kiddieland Amusement Park Have in Common
Exactly one year ago, I wrote a column called “How Can Healthcare Avoid Screwing Up AI’s Potential?” A lot of stuff has happened over the past year, to put it mildly. …
Dave's Dispatch
Waxing Vaccinations
Scale certainly hasn’t proven beneficial for administering Covid-19 vaccinations. Large state governors are smoldering on hot seats for fumbling vaccine logistics while many small state governors are sticking it to …
Outcomes
The Lost Art of Handwritten Thank You Notes
A simple thing I learned young continues to shape my life. It will shape yours also. I write handwritten thank you notes. As a boy, mom made us sit down …
Dave's Dispatch
Herding COVID-19 Immunity Forecasts
A Wall Street Journal op ed predicts herd immunity by April. Biden is hoping for herd immunity by Christmas. Who’s right? A boss once instructed me, “It’s complicated Dave. Don’t …
COVID-19
Playing Pandemic Woulda Shoulda Coulda
If you’re an avid sports fan, second guessing is second nature. They should have gone for it on fourth down rather than kick a field goal. They should have walked …
Dave's Dispatch
Hospital Prices: Are You Kidding Me!
Maybe it’s the several feet of snow piling up on our deck that have soured my outlook on hospital pricing behaviors. Winter blizzards are one way nature reminds humans that …
4sight Friday
Podcast: 4sight Friday Roundup, What’s Behind Healthcare’s Mask Problem?, 2/12/21
What’s Behind Healthcare’s Mask Problem? Not enough masks. Too many masks. Fake masks. Double masking. We tried to make sense of it all on today’s episode of the 4sight Friday …
Female Leaders in Healthcare
Take That Cheese! Julie Murchinson Interviews Dynamic Women Leading Healthcare in Dynamic Times
Welcome 4sight Health’s newest influencer, Julie Murchinson. Julie has unmatched expertise in healthcare tech and innovation as well as insatiable passion for leadership development, organizational performance and diversity. She’s not …
COVID-19
Becoming One Nation Against COVID-19
COVID-19 is now the nation’s leading cause of death. [1] Hospitals and healthcare workers are stretched to and beyond capacity. Mutating, faster-spreading coronavirus strains pose a grave danger to the …
Economics
Interoperability Is in The Eye of the Patient Information Blocker
It’s hard to believe we’re still having this conversation, but here we are. Two new reports give conflicting accounts of how willing healthcare providers are to share patient information with …
Outcomes
Hunger, Food Insecurity, and Obesity: Finding a Common Cure
The stress of COVID-19 has exacerbated the paradox of worsening hunger and food insecurity superimposed on a pre-existing overweight and obese population. What is a cure for these intersecting maladies? …
Outcomes
Looking for Unconscious Bias in Healthcare? Just Ask Your Customers
When a business is struggling, one of the first things a smart business will do is ask its customers what’s wrong. It will take the customers’ concerns to heart and …
Burda on Healthcare
How Sticky Is Telemedicine? – Burda on Healthcare
Until I got into content marketing at a previous job, the word “sticky” had a negative connotation. As a child, it meant I got grape jelly on the kitchen table …
Outcomes
Wake Up Patient Safety in 2021
I’m on a patient safety rant, and I see no reason to stop now as we dive into 2021. In a post last month, I argued that making care safer doesn’t …
Consumerism
The 10 Most-Read 4sight Health Articles for 2020
History forever will remember 2020 as the year that the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the U.S. healthcare system to the brink of collapse. Yet, throughout the daily turmoil, forward-looking healthcare disruptors, …
COVID-19
COVID-19’s Vexing Biological, Logistical and Political Vaccine Hurdles
Monday, December 14, 2020 will become an auspicious date in American history. The United States recorded its 300,000th COVID-19 death and set daily records for new COVID-19 cases (261,250) and …
Outcomes
Master of Influence: The “Notorious R.G.B.” Used Persuasion to Advance Equality
Key Takeaways Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg became a master of influence by being strategic, patient and understanding persuasion. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg used three persuasion tools frequently and effectively in …
COVID-19
More on COVID-19 and Healthcare Consumerism
Something is awakening in patients that access, cost and quality challenges couldn’t but the threat of a deadly virus with uncontrolled community spread could. That something is healthcare consumerism. We …
Consumerism
Why Losing Your Doctor is A lot Like Losing Your Barber
After I first moved to the town that I live in now from the town that I grew up in, I still went to my old barber. It was a …
Outcomes
The Proof Case for Addressing the Negative Social Determinants of Health
Up to half of all premature deaths are preventable by modifying behaviors and exposures that occur in communities.[1] “The Case For More Active Policy Attention To Health Promotion” sharpens readers’ …
Burda on Healthcare
The Market Response to the Building COVID-19 Mental Health Crisis – Burda on Healthcare
So far, my immediate family and I have dodged the coronavirus. With a wife who is a nurse, a daughter who works in public health, a son with a bachelors …
Innovation
Patient Safety Made Simple
Some ideas are so simple yet so brilliant that your reaction is “why didn’t I think of that!” When my dad experienced such a moment, he would say, “That’s a …
Outcomes
On The Verge of A Vaccine: How to Encourage Wide Acceptance
The world is on the verge of available COVID-19 vaccines. How can we encourage people to take a vaccine, and why is this question even a consideration? An answer may …
Outcomes
Time Poverty: A Growing Stress for Modern Society
I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date. No time to say hello, good-bye, I’m late, I’m late, I’m late, I’m late, and when I wave, I lose the …
COVID-19
Why COVID’s a Win-Win-Win for Health Insurers
Every once in a while something comes along that reaffirms your belief that healthcare is an industry like any other industry and that healthcare reacts the same way to economic …
Economics
What’s Your State of Health?
As I watch COVID-19 cases ebb and flow around the country over the past eight months, I wonder if any place consistently is safer than another. After repeatedly watching this …
Policy
The Impact and Cost of Gun Violence: A Plan To Help
Sadly, gun violence continues to plague America. The statistics are brutal—nearly 40,000 people die from gunshots, in addition to the 100,000 injured. Those counts equate to an average of 96 …
Market Corner Commentaries
America’s Frayed Safety Net Undermines Improved Primary Care
Key Takeaways Many high-cost Medicare and Medicaid patients suffer from multiple chronic conditions that have been poorly treated or left untreated, often for many decades. The healthcare system does a …
System Dynamics
What’s the Story on COVID and the Tenure of Hospital CEOs?
The only reason I’m writing this blog post is so I can refer to it and link to it a year from now. The lead of next year’s post will …
Economics
Healthcare’s House Flippers – Burda on Healthcare
If you come over, there’s a decent chance that HGTV will be on. The home-improvement channel is our default TV station. It runs in the background like a radio as …
COVID-19
COVID-19 Fans Flames of Consumerism in Patients
I watched an interview online yesterday with the director of emergency services at a health system in North Carolina. The interviewer asked her about how her health system coped with …
Innovation
Avoid Becoming an IT Dinosaur
Please welcome Ed Marx as 4sight Health’s newest guest columnist. Ed is among the nation’s most respected health IT leaders and an accomplished Iron Man competitor. As you’ll see in …
Economics
Looking for the Right Prescription to Regulate State Drug Markets
Of all the sectors of the healthcare industry, the one I know the least about is the pharmaceutical sector. Journalists have made careers out of covering drug companies or even …
Innovation
Where Have All the Patients Gone? The Art and Soul of Recapturing Lost Treatment Volume
On a plane trip to Oberlin College in October 1955, singer Pete Seeger wrote the first three verses of the popular anti-war song Where Have All the Flowers Gone? With …
Consumerism
Putting the Patient in Patient Safety
Outcomes still matter. They really do. Amidst all the talk about making care more accessible and convenient and making care more affordable and valuable, making care safer often gets lost …
Innovation
If Outcomes Matter, Then Start Paying Doctors to Use Clinical Decision Support Tools
No one likes to be told what to do. If there was a club for people who don’t like to be told what to do, I would be a member. …
Economics
Fixing Healthcare Would Be Easy If It Wasn’t So Hard
Fixing healthcare is very easy and extremely difficult at the same time. That dichotomy is what gives the status quo staying power. A few things that came out over the …
Innovation
Should We Regulate Healthcare Chatbots?
Don’t bury the lede. That journalism rule of thumb also applies in healthcare when you see your doctor. If you tell your doctor your throat hurts, you have a headache …
Economics
Bigger Isn’t Necessarily Better for Patient Care When It Comes to Health Systems
I think we all can agree now that provider integration doesn’t lower healthcare prices. When hospitals buy or merge with other hospitals, when medical practices buy or merge with other …
Policy
Op-Ed: Parochial politics killed health care transformation on Chicago’s South Side (Chicago Tribune)
Mercy Hospital and Medical Center in Bronzeville announced on July 29, 2020, it would close in 2021. It didn’t have to be this way. In January 2020, Mercy and three other …
Market Corner Commentaries
No Time to Waste: COVID-19 Is Propelling Operational Transformation in Health Systems
Boxer Mike Tyson famously observed, “Everyone has a plan until they’re punched in the face.” COVID-19 knocked America’s healthcare system to the canvas. Even as hospitals expanded critical care capacity …
Economics
Let Doctors Be Doctors If You Want Them to Be Good Managers
I know lots of doctors having covered healthcare now for nearly 40 years. One thing’s always puzzled me. Why would a doctor not want to be a doctor anymore and …
COVID-19
Pandemic Logic 101: Delayed Collective Gratification Saves Lives and Lifestyles
As the nation strives to return to normalcy while facing an increased prevalence of COVID-19, individual behaviors not only contribute to individual survival but also to the survival of family, …
Innovation
Does Your Chatbot Have Lockjaw?
A few Sundays ago, I needed a tetanus shot. I sliced my finger open with a single-edge razor blade that I was using to scrap old wood glue off a …
Policy
Make No Big Plans: The Democratic Party’s Unity Platform for Healthcare
Key Takeaways The Democratic Party’s emerging healthcare platform, crafted by a unity task force picked by former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, carefully avoids controversial issues. …
4sight Friday
Podcast: 4sight Friday Roundup, Reopening and Recovering the Right Way, 07/24/2020
Reopening and Recovering the Right Way Listen to this week’s 4sight Friday Roundup podcast for our take on how hospitals, health systems and medical practices should be reopening to recover …
Economics
Digging Deep (Into Your Own Pockets) to Root Out Low-Value Care
I’ve been to Oregon, and it’s beautiful. But I had no idea the state had a real problem with low-value care. I’m glad I didn’t get sick when I visited …
COVID-19
Pandemics Cubed: Social Injustice and Chronic Disease Amplify COVID-19’s Virulence
America’s current response to COVID-19 ranges from “no worries” to struggling episodically to acutely overwhelmed. The uneven response has led to catastrophic disease spread and death. Setting the stage and …
Innovation
Making Healthcare Better: Connected Business-Clinical Platforms Save Lives and Money
Founded in 1865, the German company BASF grew to become the world’s largest chemical manufacturer. By the early 1990s, BASF was a household name in Europe and Asia, but was …
COVID-19
Market Lays Odds on COVID-Inspired Digital Health Tech
This is why I don’t gamble. Well, more accurately, this is why I shouldn’t gamble. In the April 10 edition of our weekly newsletter 4sight Friday, which you could read …
COVID-19
Tracing: Get It Done, Make It Permanent.
Key Takeaways The U.S. needs a comprehensive tracing program to safely reopen an economy hobbled by COVID-19. State and local governments must hire between 100,000 and 300,000 workers for a …
Economics
Now Is the Time to Nip Low-Value Care in the Bud
The coronavirus pandemic exposed flaws in the U.S. health system that we knew existed but weren’t in a rush to do anything about because everyone (other than patients) was profiting …
COVID-19
Public Health and Healthcare in Post-COVID America: Innovative Solutions for a Healthier, More Prosperous Society
In the early 1900s, health epidemics ranging from cholera to typhoid plagued America’s increasingly crowded and polluted cities. Public health services emerged during this time to manage the onslaught of …
Outcomes |
A Statement on Racial Inequity in America
We see you. We hear you. We stand against racism. We know our broken healthcare system contributes to the racial inequities in America. I promise 4sight Health will not ignore …
COVID-19
Rogue Cops and Vigilantes: COVID-19’s Best Friends
Key Takeaways Widespread civil unrest in the wake of the police and vigilante murders of two African Americans has set back the effort to control the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health …
COVID-19
Workplace Wellness Programs and the Coronavirus Pandemic
If you think starting a workplace wellness program would be a good way to help your company recover from the COVID-19 outbreak, I’ve got a coronavirus vaccine I’d like to …
Economics
A Fortunate ACO Coincidence
As a skeptical journalist and amateur psychologist, I don’t believe much in coincidences. Things happen for a reason. Two new and separate studies of accountable care organizations illustrate the point. …
Consumerism
Why Patients Are Not Getting Their Money’s Worth on Quality Measures
When business management guru Peter Drucker uttered his famous adage, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it,” he probably wasn’t thinking about the patient experience in healthcare. But …
COVID-19
Pandemics and Your Medication Adherence
If you suffer from asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, better known as COPD, why would you not take your medication as prescribed? You take it, you can breathe, you …
COVID-19
Better Data. Better Outcomes. Moving Toward a National Health Information Exchange
Key Takeaway: A national Health Information Exchange (HIE) will be an invaluable tool for federal, state and local public health officials fighting to protect Americans from the COVID-19 and future …
COVID-19
Healthcare’s COVID-19 Echo Chamber
What consumers think of the healthcare system in the U.S. and what the system thinks of itself are two very different things. The COVID-19 outbreak has exposed just how deep …
COVID-19
Then and Now: What Woodrow Wilson’s 1918 Pandemic Failure Can Teach Us Today
Key Takeaways: There are eerie parallels between the 1918 and current viral pandemics. Woodrow Wilson’s decision to pursue the war irrespective of the pandemic accelerated the disease spread and increased …
COVID-19
Consumers Tell the Health System What They Think of Its COVID-19 Response
You know what I think about health system’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., and you know what our 4sight Health contributors think about it. But what do …
Innovation
Health Tech to the Rescue: Combatting COVID-19 with Virtual Care and Predictive Analytics
With stunning swiftness, COVID-19 knocked America’s healthcare delivery system to its knees. A month into the crisis, normal hospital operations are in upheaval. Avoiding in-person care has become the norm …
Outcomes
Differential Susceptibility of Individuals and Communities to COVID-19
COVID-19 strikes with alarming inconsistency. Most recover quickly while others die. The disease devastates some communities and spares others. Understanding why and how COVID-19 preys on some and not others …
Outcomes
Oh, hey. About that Accreditation Survey
Hospitals, health systems, medical practices, health plans, licensed clinicians and virtually every type of healthcare setting imaginable not only have to comply with countless state and federal regulations, they also …
Policy
The FDA’s Vast, Uncontrolled, COVID-19 Science Experiment
Add the Food and Drug Administration to the lengthening list of federal agencies abandoning best scientific practices as it caters to the ill-informed whims of the president of the United …
Innovation
Now Is The Time. Time To Reconfigure Routine Care.
In our recent article we identified the following five margin pressures that are coalescing to drive more value into the delivery of healthcare services: Their collective impact poses a prominent …
Consumerism
A Digital Health Distraction
We’re going to take a short mental break this week from COVID-19 and write about something else. We’re going to talk about Accenture’s latest survey of consumers on their digital …
Innovation
How the COVID-19 Pandemic Is Dulling the Point of All Those Healthcare Regulations
So, it took a deadly pandemic to expose how utterly useless most healthcare regulations are in ensuring that patients get the best possible care at the lowest possible cost when …
System Dynamics
Pandemic Preparedness 101: Creating Appropriate Surge Capacity
In 2014, Israel opened a parking garage that can be turned transformer-like into a 2,000-bed hospital. The architects hired by the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa designed the walls of …
Economics
COVID-19 Will Test the Ability of Healthcare CFOs to Manage Financial Risk
Chief financial officers around the world are scrambling to figure out how to manage the short-term economic impact and the long-term economic effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on their companies …
Outcomes
Adjusting to Life with Spreading Covid-19: Stay Safe and Be Productive
Covid-19 is stressing American society and us all in fundamental ways. The obvious and most important impact is the potential loss of life, particularly for the frail elderly and medically …
Outcomes
The Next Moonshot: Moving to Reverse America’s Declining Life Expectancy
Meet Dr. Allen Weiss, veteran health system administrator, former AHA Board member, thought leader, healthcare revolutionary, and Chief Medical Officer for the Blue Zone Project. While Allen was President & CEO …
Market Corner Commentaries
Why Strategic Partnerships Are Vital To Hospital and Health Systems Success
In our January 9th, 2020, Market Corner Commentary we identified the following five forces that are coalescing to drive more value into the delivery of healthcare services: More disciplined purchasing …
Consumerism
Digital Health Divergence
What providers want digital health tools to do, and what patients want digital health tools to do are two different things, apparently. If that’s true, we’re no nearer to creating …
Innovation
The State of Our HLTH 2019: Hard Truths and Hope. A Post-Conference Report from HLTH 2019.
HLTH engaged 4sight Health to produce this exclusive post-conference report of the HLTH 2019 conference. HLTH gave 4sight Health and its five-member writing team carte blanche to attend all theme …
Burda on Healthcare
How Can Healthcare Avoid Screwing Up AI’s Potential?
“Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave? Dave, I really think I’m entitled to an answer to that question.”—HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey I get that a …
Economics
How Fee-for-Service Makes Doctors Choose Poorly
It’s not complicated. If you want doctors to stop performing or ordering low-value procedures and tests, stop paying for them. The reminder that providers respond to financial incentives as much …
Market Corner Commentaries
Advancing Advance Care Plans through Medicare: It’s Time to Move
American culture and politics make little room for honest discussions about death and dying. Healthcare thought leader Ian Morrison is fond of saying, “In Scotland, death is imminent. In Canada, …
Innovation
Podcast Interview: How Startups Can Create Value as They Navigate Healthcare’s Shift to Risk-Based Models w/ David Johnson
There are record amounts of investment into healthcare and provider-based services – but to get your slice of the market, you’ve got to be better, faster, and smarter than the …
Economics
Which Way Will the Private Equity Pendulum Swing for Patients?
Before your physician asks you at your next office visit what brought you in today, you may want to ask them who owns their practice. Their answer may at least …
Market Corner Conversations
MARKET CORNER CONVERSATIONS: David Fajgenbaum MD, author of Chasing My Cure
Dr. David Fajgenbaum is a survivor, physician-scientist, and disease hunter. David Johnson interviews Dr. Dave about his battle with Castleman disease, in which Dr. Dave experienced how the fragmented research …
Consumerism
What’s Going to Happen in Healthcare in 2020—or Not: A Meta Review of Industry Outlooks
Maybe it’s because it’s a new decade. Maybe it’s because the year 2020 makes for easy vision analogies. Maybe it’s because CMS projects national health expenditures to break the $4 …
Consumerism
A Sign That Health System Leaders Are Starting to Take Their Customers Seriously
As a highly skeptical healthcare business journalist, I tune my radar to look for dark clouds rather than silver linings. But, every once in a while, an unexpected blip appears …
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Innovation |
Outcomes |
System Dynamics |
Interest in Clinical Decision Support Lacking
If you spend your Saturday afternoons watching home remodeling shows or cooking shows, you realize that having the right tools for the job makes all the difference. What you struggle …
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Consumerism |
Economics |
Innovation |
Outcomes |
Policy |
System Dynamics |
What Revolutionary Healthcare Leaders Read This Year: The Top 5 Commentaries on 4sightHealth.com for 2019
Here at 4sight Health, we like to call it like it is. We see and throw a flag on the things that prevent the healthcare system in the U.S. from …
Market Corner Commentaries
Overcoming Collateral Damage: Healthcare Price Transparency Now and Forever
Key Takeaways: Providers and payers fight the implementation of transparent prices with all their considerable resources and influence. Monopolies and monopsonies resist transparent pricing for their services because it threatens …
Outcomes
Join the Revolution!
“The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.” Pawan Kalyan …
Economics
Has Healthcare Lost Its Appetite for Value?
I get the feeling that the industry is moving on from this whole volume-to-value thing and will need to find a new analogy to replace that foot-in-two-canoes business that everyone …
Blog
Trying to Wake Up Patient Engagement
Your patient engagement strategy would have worked, too, if it wasn’t for those darn patients. That’s the sentiment from a new survey of 70 CIOs, executives and directors at 65 …
Blog
From Fragmented to Coordinated: Cancer Care Solutions for Communities
Cancer is America’s second leading killer behind heart disease and accounts for one quarter of total U.S. deaths.[1] Cancer constitutes over 100 diseases, typically categorized by organs (breast, lung, colon, …
Blog
Embracing the Digitally Disconnected Patient
All the shrugs, shock and handwringing this week over the Google-Ascension patient data-sharing deal got me wondering about what patients thought of all this. So I scrolled through a bunch …
Market Corner Commentaries
Transforming the Built Environment: Unlocking Value Across the Health Care Continuum
Health care providers suffer from a unique form of institutional irony: delivering institutionalized care in centralized, high-cost facilities impedes their ability to meet their communities’ expansive health and wellness needs. …
Consumerism
Join the Customer Revolution in Healthcare!
“The most heroic word in all languages is revolution.” Eugene V. Debs Find out more about The Customer Revolution in Healthcare in David Johnson’s book. McGraw-Hill releases …
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Economics |
Outcomes |
Policy |
How Much Will It Take To Improve Patient Safety?
One of the best lines in Jaws comes from Brody after he sees the 25-foot great white shark for the first time. He slowly backs into the cabin, looks at …
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Economics |
Innovation |
Outcomes |
System Dynamics |
Fireside Chat: Why You Should Join the Customer Revolution
Join us in downtown Chicago on Thursday, November 14 at 5:30PM at MATTER. Michael Allen, CFO of OSF Healthcare, will interview David Johnson about critical concepts in Dave’s new book …
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Outcomes |
Policy |
System Dynamics |
The Rush to Move Patient Care Out of the Hospital
Everyone wants patients out of the hospital, where the costliest of costly care takes place. Government payers. Commercial health plans. Patients. Doctors. Even hospitals want patients out of the hospital. …
Outcomes |
Ranked #2 on Porchlight’s August 2019 Business Bestsellers List
The Customer Revolution in Healthcare: Delivering Kinder, Smarter, Affordable Care for All by David W. Johnson ranks #2 on Porchlight’s August 2019 Business Bestsellers List. Take a look at the …
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Economics |
Outcomes |
Policy |
Will Misuse of Antibiotics Respond to Regulation?
I got my flu shot on Oct. 21. (I’ll let you know how it worked out.) As I waited for my turn at our nearby immediate-care center, I explained to …
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Consumerism |
Outcomes |
Join the Revolution!
“There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction.” John F. Kennedy Jr. …
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Economics |
Innovation |
Outcomes |
Finding the Value for Healthcare Consumers in Outcomes-Based Contracting
When you buy something and it doesn’t work, you take it back to the store (or more likely send it back to Amazon via your local Kohl’s) for a refund. …
Outcomes
Join the Revolution!
“Revolution comes when human beings set out to correct decadent institutions.” H. Rap Brown …
Blog
What Revolutionary Healthcare Leaders Are Reading: The Top 5 4sight Health Commentaries Over the Past Six Months
4sight Health’s writers and authors have published 57 blog posts, commentaries, podcasts and videos on 4sighthealth.com from January through June of this year. The topics are as varied as the …
Blog
Maybe It’s the Patients, Not the Prices. Is that Stupid?
In most markets for most goods and services, you get what you pay for. The more you pay, the better the goods or the services. Hence, the expression, you get …
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Economics |
Outcomes |
System Dynamics |
If You Scroll Down, You’ll Find Out What Employers Really Think About Healthcare
With open enrollment about a month away at most businesses that offer health insurance benefits to their workers, it’s time to look at what employers are doing and not doing …
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Consumerism |
Outcomes |
System Dynamics |
Has Room for Improvement
So, how’s it going? Do you think your hospital or health system or medical practice or health plan or pharmacy or life sciences company or post-acute care facility is providing …
Economics |
Innovation |
Market Corner Commentaries |
Outcomes |
System Dynamics |
Platforming Health Care to Transform Care Delivery
NEJM Catalyst Article for September 19, 2019 David W. Johnson, MPP Amy Compton-Phillips, MD Hospitals used to be at the center of the health care universe. Today, new business models …
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Do You Trust Your Doctor?
When people my age were kids, there was a good chance that their parents wanted them to be doctors. Some wanted their children to be lawyers. I don’t recall anyone …
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An American Inquiry: Why I Wrote The Customer Revolution in Healthcare
What convinced a former Peace Corps volunteer and healthcare investment banker like me that the U.S. healthcare system (the System) requires revolutionary overhaul? It really came down to just one …
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Why Fee-for-Service Medicine is Bad for Your Health
The later in the day that you see your doctor you’re more likely to get the flu, get colon cancer and get hooked on prescription pain killers. OK, that’s a …
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The Truth About Genetics, Epigenetics and Chronic Disease
Chronic disease consumes 86% of the national health expenditure and kills 7 of 10 people. President Clinton and Obama both created initiatives to cure cancer through genetic research and therapies. …
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How Commoditizing Colonoscopies Will Drive New Business
Colonoscopies are the American College of Gastroenterology’s preferred strategy to detect colon cancer. Ten million Americans annually undergo colonoscopies at a cost approximating $10 billion. Although colonoscopy prices vary, the …
Blog
4 Success Strategies of Interfacing Healthcare Companies
In post-reform healthcare, incumbent health systems must adapt or die from the force of innovative new companies. Incumbents are vulnerable to value-based attacks. They are asset-heavy, revenue-centric and have ineffective …
Consumerism
Desperately Seeking Market-Based Patient Safety Solutions – Burda on Healthcare
This Nov. 29 will mark the 20th anniversary of the release of the report, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, the seminal work by the Institute of …
Outcomes
5-Steps to Ensure Wise End-of-Life Decision-Making
Why is it taboo to talk about death? Too often, American families avoid confrontation with death and suffer from catastrophic emotional, medical and financial consequences. Medicare spends 26% of its …
Outcomes
There’s No O (outcomes) in ACO
Medicare accountable care organizations say they’re doing a lot to manage and coordinate the care of sick beneficiaries. But a new study says the ACOs don’t have much to show …
Economics
Pets versus Babies: Who Offers More Health Benefits at Work?
Everyone, including me, is always on employers to do more to improve the healthcare system in the U.S. We’re on them to use their healthcare purchasing power and insured-lives market …
Innovation
3 Successful Telemedicine Companies Disrupting Healthcare
In August 2017, Hurricanes Harvey and Irma devastated the South and Southeast regions. Florida evacuated over 7 million people, 7.4 million people lost power and almost 60 hospitals throughout the …
Market Corner Conversations
MARKET CORNER CONVERSATIONS: Jeff Dunn, CEO of Redivus Health
Jeff Dunn DO / MBA and David Johnson discuss the realities of cardiac arrest inside the hospital, for patients and clinicians, in Episode 18 of Market Corner Conversations. Survival rates are …
Outcomes
Cardiac Conflicts Put Payments Ahead of Patients
It seems that the Healthcare Industrial Complex (TM) is alive and well in the cardiac catheterization and electrophysiology laboratories at the top heart hospitals across the country. At least that’s …
Consumerism
Why Service Doesn’t Mean Services at Highly Rated Hospitals
What were you expecting, an ICU? A new study in JAMA Internal Medicine reveals that the hospitals patients rated highly for service were less likely to have the actual medical …
Innovation
3 Essential Values Home Care Needs to Capture Greater Market Share
The home healthcare sector is dominated by “mom and pops” in a highly-fragmented and under-performing market. Fraud is rampant and customer care is inconsistent. The Department of Health and Human …
Policy
Regulatory Chess: Positioning for Competitive Advantage
To entrepreneurs, regulation is the enemy of innovation. That’s especially true in healthcare. Experts agree that healthcare is one of the most, if not the most regulated industry in the …
Outcomes
A GPS for Cardiac Arrest: In Life-or-Death Moments Clinical Apps Save Lives
Resuscitating Your Patients and Building Your Clinical Reputation The plane is in a nosedive. The sweating pilot is fighting to control the aircraft. A nervous co-pilot is furiously flipping through …
Economics
More on Why Employers Should Pay Attention to Behavioral Health
More on the what and the why of employers and behavioral health, and what both mean for remaking the nation’s healthcare system into one where outcomes matter, customers count and …
System Dynamics
Hitting a Wall on EHR Interoperability, Patient Access
You know that moment when you “hit the wall” when you’re running a marathon? I don’t. But, I’m told that it typically happens around the 20-mile mark when your physical …
Outcomes
What Fish and Colonoscopies Have in Common
By now you know you should never order fish at a restaurant on a Monday. That’s because the fish likely has been lying around the kitchen since early Friday morning. …
Outcomes
What Businesses Say They’re Doing About Their Employees’ Mental Health
The National Institute of Mental Health says 46.6 million adults suffered from some form of mental illness in 2017. Of those, 57.4 percent didn’t receive any mental health treatment for …
Consumerism
Why Millennials May Be Pushing Us Off a Healthcare Cliff
I’m not sure that US millennials are going to have a happy ending when it comes to their healthcare. If I’m reading things right, in less than 30 years, when …
Outcomes
Death by Healthcare Knockoff
Knockoffs usually aren’t as good as the originals, whether they’re golf clubs, purses or pressure cookers. A new study suggests that you can add healthcare to the list, especially if …
System Dynamics
Culture Change Isn’t a Natural for Healthcare Organizations
“We must begin by asking it, ‘What is losing?’ Losing is a disease. As contagious as polio. Losing is a disease. As contagious as syphilis. Losing is a disease. As …
Policy
Opioid Variations and State Interventions
Like companies in any other industry, when providers misbehave, it opens the door to state regulation of their behavior. What’s interesting about a new study in JAMA Open Network is …
Outcomes
Why Healthcare is Spinning Its VBR Wheels
It’s like preparing and serving a seven-course meal that your biggest customer ordered only to have the entire menu change between the salad and the main course. That’s what it …
Market Corner Conversations
MARKET CORNER CONVERSATIONS: Dr. Jonathan M. Zenilman, Johns Hopkins University
Hear how Dr. Zenilman’s residency at Kings College Hospital in the early 1980s, at the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic, started his career in infectious disease, through the CDC, to …
Consumerism
The Strained Relationship Between Doctors and Patients – Burda on Healthcare
What if you walked into your doctor’s office and there was a sign hanging in the waiting room that said: “Please do not confuse your Google search with my medical …
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4 Data Principles Healthcare Companies Need to Advance Care Delivery
What if the healthcare industry could use data as efficiently as Amazon? What if physicians could know the habits of patients like Amazon knows consumers’ buying history? What is physicians …
Economics
Why Proponents Are Finding Innovative Health Plan Designs a Hard Sell
When your phone company or your cable provider offers you a new and innovative service plan, your immediate thought is that you’re going to end up paying more for less. …
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How to Provide Value-Based Care to Drive Customer Engagement
“Dr. Knows Best” is no longer the only sell healthcare companies can make to consumers. In post-reform healthcare, successful companies need to provide quality value-based care, innovative technological solutions and …
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Shining a Light on the High Risks of Low-Value Care
Low-value care doesn’t just drive up healthcare costs without providing any discernable medical benefit to patients. It can kill you. That’s the takeaway and market lesson from the latest study …
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Digital Disillusionment: Are We There Yet?
There are signs that digital health—the promised cure for everything that’s wrong with healthcare—may be slipping into the trough of disillusionment. You may want to check your heart rhythm on …
Consumerism
When Hospitals Merge, Patient Satisfaction Gets Squeezed
When two competing companies merge and get bigger, a common worry of their customers is whether the quality of service will suffer as a result. Should patients worry about the …
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Price Controls Take Root in Rhode Island. Will They Spread to Your State?
One state’s attempt to control healthcare costs by using “affordability standards” ended up limiting increases in commercial health insurance payments to hospitals and doctors without any changes in utilization or …
System Dynamics
Forced Resignations at NCH Healthcare System Expose Medicine’s Dark Side
An ongoing feud between independent physicians and hospital administrators in Naples, Florida, exploded last month, damaging the trust between the community, providers and the health system. (1) The furor centered …
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Wither the Traditional Physician Office Visit
It’s not your imagination or the self-serving forecast of a healthcare consultant angling for your business. Fewer people are seeing their doctors in person in a physical office. It’s a …
System Dynamics
After the Breakups: Big Payers Find Vertical Love in New Faces
In rapid succession at the end of 2018, CVS closed its $70 billion acquisition of Aetna and Cigna closed its $67 billion acquisition of Express Scripts. The consolidated companies are …
Innovation
Everyone Knows What’s Going to Happen in Healthcare in 2019. Do You?
What’s going to happen in healthcare this year is anyone’s guess. Not really. What’s going to happen in healthcare this year is everyone’s guess. Like most of you, from mid-December …
Outcomes
Everything in Healthcare is Changing—Except One Thing
Much has changed in healthcare over the past 25 years. A lot has changed in healthcare over the past 25 minutes. But one thing hasn’t changed, and that’s the public’s …
Innovation
Bundled-Pay Evaluation a Study in Hospital Market-Based Behavior
What would you cut out if you suddenly had to reduce your monthly household expenses by 5 percent, 10 percent, or even 25 percent? I’m sure that some of the …
Innovation
Getting Precise about Precision Medicine: Balancing Hope, Potential and Cost
Definitions of precision medicine are anything but precise. For seriously ill patients and their families, precision medicine therapies provide a hope when all else has failed. They’re willing to risk …
Consumerism
#1 Strategy All Successful Healthcare Organizations Should Know
American healthcare companies have a blind spot that will disrupt the growth of their organizations. The old way of American healthcare business has always been a payment battle between large …
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How to Create Pro-Market Healthcare Reform in an Opioid Crisis
Over 200,000 Americans have died since 2000 due to opioid overdoses.[1] That’s equivalent to all of Salt Lake City[2] disappearing from our country. The epidemic is destroying communities throughout America, …
Economics
Want Better Cardiac Outcomes? Just Follow the Money
The line between financial incentives and clinical outcomes just got a little straighter. A new study says money may have erased the difference in readmission rates between the top heart …
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New Primary Care Provider, Same or Better Outcomes
Expanding the scope of practice for nurse practitioners and physician assistants may be a cost-effective way to manage the health of patients with chronic illnesses. That’s the market-based reform takeaway …
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Few On The Same Page When It Comes To The Value of Value-Based Reimbursement
Yet another report shows that fee-for-service medicine is hard to kill. This time the culprits are a lack of faith in value-based reimbursement by clinicians and a lack of trust …
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Pointing the Finger at Health Plans for Providers’ Price Variations
Wide variations in what providers charge for the same medical services are notorious. But providers are not acting alone. They’re aided and abetted—and some would say coerced—by health plans whose …
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TOP HOSPITALS MAKE IT TOUGH ON PATIENTS WHO WANT TO SEE THEIR OWN MEDICAL RECORDS
All hospitals say that they want to engage patients in their own medical care. But even the best hospitals are making it difficult for patients to access their own medical …
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Autism Therapy Shines Bright: Early Intervention, Improved Access and Individualized Care Change Lives
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is the nation’s fastest-growing developmental disorder, one that touches each child and family in unique and complicated ways. A lifelong condition, ASD requires individualized treatments that …
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Healthcare Worker Flu Vaccine Rates Offer a Lesson in Self-Policing
Short of making flu shots mandatory for healthcare workers, healthcare employers need to do much more to immunize their staffs from a virus that threatens their health and the health …
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The Early Patient Gets the Flu Shot
Unnecessary variation in patient care is a quality and cost killer. And it’s not just a problem for complex medical cases. It’s a problem for even the most routine services …
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A Lesson in Value-Based Payments from Across the Pond
If you paid your kids to clean their rooms and keep them clean, would they? If you stopped paying them, would they keep cleaning their rooms because they realized that …
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As GM Goes, So Goes Healthcare: Dynamics of Demand-Driven Reform
“For years I [have] thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa.” Charles E. Wilson Last month, General Motors signed a 5-year agreement …
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Gawande’s Gift: Re-Imagining Corporate Wellness and Healthcare
Amid much fanfare, the Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, JP Morgan health venture (ABJ) announced on June 20th that its new CEO will be acclaimed author and surgeon Atul Gawande. Gawande starts his new job …
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How Soccer Explains Healthcare: Collective Performance Defines Success (1)
The 21st FIFA World Cup kicked off on June 14th when host Russia trounced a weak Saudi Arabian team 5-0 at 81,000-seat Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. It equaled the most lopsided opening …
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Destination Medicare Advantage: Lonnie & Cathy’s Quest for Great Health Insurance
In 1993, the health insurance industry funded the legendary “Harry and Louise” campaign to mobilize public opinion against the Clinton healthcare reform proposal. The strategy worked. Despite enormous investment of political capital, …
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MARKET CORNER CONVERSATIONS: Dr. Mike Roizen, Cleveland Clinic Foundation
Dr. Mike Roizen, Chief Wellness Officer and Chair of the Wellness Institute at Cleveland Clinic, joins David Johnson for Episode 9 of Market Corner Conversations. Dr. Roizen is the creator …
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Pro-Market and Pro-Business: Not Always the Same, Particularly in Healthcare
Shortly after publishing Market vs. Medicine: America’s Epic Fight for Better, Affordable Healthcare in June 2016, I met with my former investment banking colleague, Jullia Quazi. Jullia arrived with a very funny story …
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Superhero Healthcare (Part 2): Already Here; Growing Fast; Payment-Driven
Part I of Superhero Healthcare identified several bright spots within American healthcare where liberated caregivers deliver appropriate, efficient care to engaged patients; where the interests of health companies and their customers align; and where compassion, …
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Superhero Healthcare (Part 1): Liberating America’s Caregivers and Patients!
Most weekends in America, long lines form outside cineplexes as ardent fans of DC and Marvel Comics catch the latest iterations on the big screen. Since the dawn of motion …
Market Corner Conversations
Market Corner Conversations: Dr. Toby Cosgrove, Cleveland Clinic
Toby Cosgrove, M.D., former CEO of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, joins David Johnson in Episode 7 of Market Corner Conversations. Dr. Cosgrove shares how he built a culture of empathy …
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Market Corner Conversations: Dr. Rushika Fernandopulle, Co-Founder & CEO, Iora Health
Rushika Fernandopulle, M.D., Co-Founder & CEO of Iora Health, joins David Johnson in Episode 6 of Market Corner Conversations. Rushika shares how he decided that the incremental change model wasn’t working …
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Scaling Relationship-Based Care: “Different Spokes (Care Models) for Different Folks”
In 1970, Marcus Welby, MD became ABC Television’s first show to top network television ratings. Dr. Welby was a cheerful family practice physician with a soothing bedside manner who was …
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Market Corner Conversations: Mike Pykosz, Oak Street Health
In Episode 4 of Market Corner Conversations, Mike Pykosz, CEO of Oak Street Health, shares the bottom-up approach Oak Street takes toward its Medicare Part B members. Oak Street creates …
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Upsizing Dentistry: Putting More Bite into Primary Care
Quad/Graphics, the American printing company, was founded near Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1971 by a husband and wife team. Harry and Betty Quadracci saw advantages in a family approach to doing …
Outcomes
Reimbursement Follows Respect: Leading States Pay to Address Social Determinants of Health
For too long, the “Social Determinants of Health” (SDH) have been the big elephant in the exam room. While no one denies that a diabetic living alone in a food …
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Fortress Healthcare Meanders Toward Value
There are more “suits” in downtown San Francisco each January for JP Morgan’s annual healthcare conference than the rest of the year combined. Heavy rain drenched San Francisco on January …
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Good Intentions Aren’t Enough: Choosing Wisely Misses the Target
Market Corner Commentary Special Report for November 8, 2017 Earlier this year, the Choosing Wisely campaign celebrated its 5th anniversary. Choosing Wisely is a well-funded, practice-focused organization created to reduce …
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Capitalizing on Comprehensive Care: Cultivating a Medicare Advantage Mindset
This paper is Part 3 in our series on payment reform. After highlighting various efforts to reign in healthcare costs over the past 50 years in Part 1, Part 2 …
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Merle Power! Living Long and Prospering
By Kurt Waltenbaugh and David W. Johnson Merle Phillips is a petite 110-year old 4’9” fireball who keeps doing big things. She’s writing her twelfth book and recently created a …
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Advantage Medicare Advantage: Delivering Healthcare’s Triple Aim to America’s Seniors
Hitting the Sweet Spot for Patients and Providers The United States is experiencing a demographic tidal wave. Baby Boomers are turning 65 in record numbers and that trend will accelerate …
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Market Corner Conversations: Paul Walczak, NuVista
4sight Health’s inaugural episode with Paul Walczak, the CEO from NuVista, a remarkably innovative post-acute care company coordinating value-based delivery in southern Florida that achieves superior outcomes at very low costs. …
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The Iceberg Cometh: Welcome to Sickville, USA
In the western suburbs outside Minneapolis, two men lead average lives. Surveying them as part of the general population, no health system, insurer or policy maker would notice anything that …
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Symbiotic Disruption: Skilled-Nursing-REIT Ecosystem Adapts to Market Dynamics
Nature thrives on symbiosis. Its many ecosystems would not exist without important relationships between sometimes strange bedfellows. The oceans’ most colorful coral reefs, for example, are often found in clear …
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“Indumbent” Healthcare Thinking: Prices Don’t Matter
In a March 29th New York Times article, author Elizabeth Rosenthal chronicles America’s dystopian system for coding and billing medical treatments. Rosenthal concludes that the medical-billing system itself is a …
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AHA! Healthcare is Both a Right and a Commodity
In late January, I participated in an Oxford-style debate regarding whether healthcare is a commodity. The debate was the featured event at Tata Memorial Centre’s Platinum Jubilee Conference in Mumbai, …
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Scaling Healthcare’s Mt. Everest: Peak Performers Engage Technology and Consumers
Climbing the highest mountains requires organization, preparation and strategy. Scaling Mt. Everest is a full-scale expedition. Large teams rely on a sophisticated infrastructure of supplies, equipment and support staff. A …
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Letting Go: Steward Sells Its Hospitals and Embraces Patient-Centric Care
Last September, Massachusetts-based Steward Health Care System announced that it would sell its 9 hospitals to Alabama-based Medical Properties Trust (MPT) for $1.2 billion in a 15-year sale-leaseback transaction with …
System Dynamics
Behavioral Health Goes Local: The Emergence of Integrated, Community-Based Services
by Todd Rudsenske and David W. Johnson From addiction to depression to psychosis, mental illness exacts a growing toll on individuals, families, communities and health systems. We can measure its …
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Overcoming Medical Errors of Omission: The Cure Requires Organizational Empathy
Organizations fail or decline more frequently because of what they did not do than because of what they did. Russell L. Ackoff Professor of Management Science Wharton School, University …
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Winning “The Cub Way”: It Takes an Organization
The Cubs just finished the 2016 regular season with 103 wins and baseball’s best record by a mile. They have spectacular pitching, powerhouse hitting and solid defense. Las Vegas odds-makers …
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Market Evolution: Addressing Structural Flaws on Public Health Exchanges
After two-plus years of operations, clear structural flaws have emerged in the design and function of public health exchanges. Health insurance cooperatives have largely failed. Many traditional insurers have suffered …
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Summer Book Report: 4sight Health’s Busy August
With Labor Day weekend approaching, state fairs in full swing, and the barbeque calling, most of us have just half a mind on work. At 4sight Health we’re enjoying the …
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Being American: How Exceptionalism Is Transforming U.S. Healthcare
Midway through the Rio Olympics, the prowess of the diverse, raucous and remarkably talented U.S. team is on full display. We marvel at the athletes’ dedication. Their enthusiasm is infectious. …
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Where’s the Beef? Employers Question the Value of Hospital Mergers
In an iconic 1984 commercial for Wendy’s hamburgers, the diminutive octogenarian Clara Peller and two friends are eating hamburgers at the fictional “Home of the Big Bun.” Disappointed by their …
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Obama Speaks: A Presidential Assessment of Obamacare
Market Corner Commentary for July 27, 2016 Earlier this month, President Obama took the unprecedented step of authoring an academic research article in The Journal of the American Medical Association …
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Made in America: Venture-Backed Healthcare Solutions
Market Corner Commentary for July 20, 2016 Last month, Reed Abelson of the New York Times chronicled the challenges of Oscar Health, the venture-funded health insurance company. Despite massive investment, …
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It Takes Two to Tango: Cracking the Patient/Customer Engagement Code
The tango is a beautiful, complex, fast-paced dance that gets the heart racing for participants and spectators alike. The intimacy of two partners moving in coordinated lockstep leaves no doubt: …
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Great Consumer Expectations: Data-Enabled Healthcare Outcomes and Service
Health companies experience excessive variation in clinical outcomes, quality metrics, procedure pricing and customer satisfaction. This frustrates providers, payors, employers and patients alike. All Americans want the healthcare system to …
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The Post-Acute Gold Rush: Winning the Race to the Claims Office
Gold’s glitter and the lure of quick riches led 90,000 unruly prospectors to California in 1849. The gold rush was on and it had rules. Prospectors had to actively work …
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Necessity Turbo-Charges Productivity at Cleveland Clinic Florida
Coming into 2015, Ozzie Delgado confronted a thorny problem. Cleveland Clinic Florida was experiencing expansive demand for surgical services. Occupancy was already at 92% and there would be no capacity …
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Lactose Intolerance: Aaron Rodgers and the Cheese-Heavy American Diet
Wisconsin may never be the same. Green Bay Packers star quarterback announced this month that he has stopped eating dairy products to “get healthier.” As Bart Simpson might observe, the …
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Let’s Talk: Constructive End-of-Life Decision-Making
At Jeff Shield’s memorial service, Genie Shields proclaimed that her husband’s death has been a “gift,” one that enriches all who receive it. When it became clear that lymphoma would …
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Rethinking Healthcare.Gov: As Covered California Goes, So Goes Nation?
Rethinking Healthcare.Gov: As Covered California Goes, So Goes Nation? The 17 state-run healthcare exchanges are real-life “laboratories” for the federally-run exchanges that operate in 34 states. No state exchange has …
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Two Runners, Two Countries, Two Emergencies: You Decide
For over a decade I’ve plodded up and down the Chicago lakefront with the same group of idiotic runners. Through wind, sun, snow and rain we babble about anything that …
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Misdirected Fury: The Boston Globe “Spotlights” Concurrent Surgeries
Market Corner Commentary for March 2, 2016: Misdirected Fury: The Boston Globe “Spotlights” Concurrent Surgeries At Sunday night’s 88th Academy Awards, Spotlight won the Oscar for best picture. The movie chronicles …
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Healthcare’s Productivity Paradox: Ferocious Exploitation of Reimbursed Payment
Market Corner Commentary for February 17, 2016-Healthcare’s Productivity Paradox: Ferocious Exploitation of Reimbursed Payment Las Vegas is a strange place to attend a medical conference. In June 2014, the Healthcare …
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Big Data’s Ups and Downs: The Good, The Scary and The Creepy
Market Corner Commentary for February 10, 2016-Big Data’s Ups and Downs: The Good, The Scary and The Creepy Big data analytics are essential for understanding consumer preferences. Collecting, measuring and …
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Pursuing What Works: Genetics, Epigenetics and Chronic Disease
Market Corner Commentary for February 3, 2016-Pursuing What Works: Genetics, Epigenetics and Chronic Disease Genetics-based therapies represent the pinnacle of medical science. Billions of dollars have poured into research to …
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U.S. Healthcare in 2016: Enjoy the Sideshow; Watch the Main Event
Market Corner Commentary for January 27, 2016- U.S. Healthcare in 2016: Enjoy the Sideshow; Watch the Main Event For the sixty-second time, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation repealing Obamacare …
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Exchange Matters: UnitedHealth Takes a Stand or Does It?
Market Corner Commentary for January 20, 2016 During an investor call in November, the nation’s largest health insurance company (UnitedHealth Group) delivered a body blow to the Affordable Care Act’s …
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Dynamic Tension: Rethinking Health System Governance
Market Corner Commentary- Health System Governance- for January 6, 2015 John Koster MD and David Johnson The winds of post-reform transformation are blowing through healthcare. Long-established health systems confront existential …
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Getting Right with Consumers: Right Businesses. Right Places. Right Prices.
Market Corner Commentary for November 11, 2015-Getting Right with Consumers: Right Businesses. Right Places. Right Prices. Consumerism has the force and precision of heat-seeking missiles. Customers flocked to Walmart because it …
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“Amazoning” Healthcare’s High Prices
“Amazoning” Healthcare’s High Prices A recent Kaiser Health News article reports that prices for basic women’s health services vary dramatically within and across markets. The cost for mammograms in Dallas …
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Value Rules: Playbook for Post-Reform Healthcare
Market Corner Commentary for October 21, 2015-Value Rules: Playbook for Post-Reform Healthcare Warren Buffett famously noted that “price is what you pay and value is what you get.” In fee-for-service …
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“The Cubs Way”: Lessons in Leadership, Cultural Change and Performance Improvement
Market Corner Commentary for October 14, 2015-“The Cubs Way”: Lessons in Leadership, Cultural Change and Performance Improvement Any team can have a bad century! The Chicago Cubs define ineptitude. They …
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Doc-Fix Legislation: Medicare Makes Physicians an “Offer They Can’t Refuse”
David Johnson and Nathan Bays-Doc-Fix Legislation: Medicare Makes Physicians an “Offer They Can’t Refuse” After years of temporary fixes and short-term extensions, the U.S. Congress repealed Medicare’s Sustainable Growth Rate …
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The Tyranny of Average Costing: Profit and COST in Value-Based Delivery
Market Corner Commentary for September 23rd-The Tyranny of Average Costing: Profit and COST in Value-Based Delivery Michael Porter, the eminent Harvard Business School professor, defines “value” in healthcare as “achieving the best …
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Mind and Medicine: Amplified Healing Through Behavioral Science
Market Corner Commentary for September 16, 2015-Mind and Medicine: Amplified Healing Through Behavioral Science In announcing his Precision Medicine Initiative, President Obama articulated a medical future where genetic discovery shapes tailored …
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Of Metrics and Meaning: Making Sense of Healthcare Quality Ratings
Market Corner Commentary for September 9, 2015-Of Metrics and Meaning: Making Sense of Healthcare Quality Ratings As healthcare becomes more consumer-focused, hospital and physician rating systems are proliferating. Yelp is …
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Kinky Boots, Swedish Dialysis and Demanding Customers
Market Corner Commentary for August 26, 2015-Kinky Boots, Swedish Dialysis and Demanding Customers The oldest and best advice in business is “give customers what they want.” From Broadway to Sweden, …
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Individual Mandate: Are You Up for N=1 Healthcare?
Market Corner Commentary for August 19, 2015 (disruption)-Individual Mandate: Are You Up for N=1 Healthcare? Yogi Berra famously observed, “The future just ain’t like it used to be.” In N=1: How …
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King for a Day: Winning Strategies in Post-Reform Healthcare
Market Corner Commentary for August 12, 2015 -King for a Day: Winning Strategies in Post-Reform Healthcare-(#Quality Outcomes) Great leaders ask great questions. Banner Health’s CEO recently wrote and asked me, …
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Medicare at Fifty: More Yesterdays than Tomorrows?
Market Corner Commentary: August 5, 2015-Medicare at Fifty: More Yesterdays than Tomorrows? A version of this commentary appeared in Huron Healthcare’s “Perspectives” on July 30th With Harry Truman watching, Lyndon …
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Reimbursement Roulette: Health Companies “Double Down” on Revenue
Market Corner Commentary: July 28, 2015-Reimbursement Roulette: Health Companies “Double Down” on Revenue A version of this commentary appeared in “Academy 360” on July 23, 2015 Let the good times …
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David Jones’ Locker: Humana and the Perils of Vertical Integration
Market Corner Commentary: July 22, 2015-David Jones’ Locker: Humana and the Perils of Vertical Integration American healthcare is losing the iconic Humana brand. Aetna has announced it will acquire Humana …
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Crossing the Technology Chasm: Tele-ICUs Save Lives and Money
Crossing the Technology Chasm: Tele-ICUs Save Lives and Money The Leapfrog Group’s[1] fact sheet on ICU Physician Staffing estimates that preventable ICU deaths exceed 54,000 each year. This figure excludes …
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No One is an Island: Meaningful Second Opinions
Market Corner Commentary: July 1, 2015-No One is an Island: Meaningful Second Opinions A good friend (let’s call him John Donne) in his mid-fifties recently wrote describing his treatment for …
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Chasing Colonoscopies: It’s the Customer, Stupid!
Who knew a routine colonoscopy could illuminate the wild world of healthcare consumerism? Before getting to my story, let’s examine the current state of colonoscopies in America.[1] Colonoscopies are the …
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Deep Web Rising: Healthcare’s Looming Cyber Threat
A version of this commentary first appeared April 30th in “Academy 360”-Deep Web Rising: Healthcare’s Looming Cyber Threat Healthcare is a “target-rich” environment for cyber criminals. Cyber attacks on health …
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Holy Sheets! Fast-Tracking Delivery Innovation
Holy Sheets! Fast-Tracking Delivery Innovation Hospitals have used cotton linens since the early 1900s. Crisp, white sheets touch all patients and epitomize healing. “Hospital corners” describe the proper way to …