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Infographic: Top 5 Hospital Performance Metrics

August 7, 2019 BY Valeria Alves

Hospital performance assessment is complicated, and parsing through the vast quantity of financial, clinical, and quality data can be overwhelming. There are hundreds of metrics for administrators to track, and every hospital has unique performance goals. While some prioritize financial performance, others may seek to improve clinical outcomes.

Effective performance tracking and data analysis can strengthen a facility's financial performance, improve clinical outcomes, and raise quality scores. We've outlined 5 of the most essential hospital performance metrics below.

How to Develop Your Hospital Benchmarking Plan

August 7, 2019 BY Alanna Moriarty

Understanding and prioritizing areas of improvement for hospitals and care facilities can be difficult. There are financial, clinical, and quality metrics; competition with regional facilities; comparisons to care sites of similar size serving like patient populations, and more. Once hospital leaders decide on which measures to track, the sheer quantity of data can be overwhelming, making it difficult to create an effective plan of action.

4 Ways Telemedicine is Changing Healthcare

July 31, 2019 BY Tory Waldron

According to the Harvard Business Review, 84 percent of U.S. patients said that they would use telemedicine services if they were offered. This may explain why the global telehealth market is expected to reach $93.45 billion by 2026. 

Telehealth is expected to grow -- but if this is the case, why isn't this technology more widespread? According to Definitive Healthcare’s data, only one-third of inpatient hospitals and 45 percent of outpatient facilities provide telehealth solutions or services; the movement toward telehealth may be stalling due to federal policy and regulations. After all, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) just finalized expansion of provider reimbursement for telehealth and virtual care services in late 2018. But, ready or not, telemedicine is on its way into the fold, steadily increasing in popularity -- and set to change the future of healthcare as we know it. 

Like anything else, there are some upsides and downsides to this technology. Let's explore two benefits and two challenges associated with telemedicine, and what we might expect to see in the coming years:

Most Common Mental Health Diagnoses

July 29, 2019 BY Alanna Moriarty

Mental illness impacts millions of Americans every year. Despite the growing awareness of mental health issues, many patients face stigma and insecurity around their experiences and diagnoses.

According to the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI), about 1 in 5 American adults experiences mental illness every year -- more than 46 million people. Roughly 1 in 25 American adults, or 11.2 million people annually, experiences mental illness that severely interferes with major life activities.

3 Common Barriers to Implementing Inpatient Telehealth

July 24, 2019 BY Sara Essember

Telehealth is credited with facilitating a wide range of improvements for both patients and hospitals alike. From lowering patient costs to reducing readmission rates and expanding basic healthcare accessibility for rural residents, the impacts of telehealth are proving to be far-reaching.

A recent study found that patients who accessed telehealth services had a 31-percent reduction in all-cause hospital readmission rates and reported lower depression and anxiety levels.