Optimizing speciality clinics in a telemedicine world

Patients resign themselves to this simple fact every time they have an appointment with a specialist: nearly half of the total time that they spend in the clinic will be spent waiting alone. This clinic “alone time” begins in the waiting room, both before and after check-in. Then there is the time spent perched on the […]

5 solutions to maximize your OR capacity

Operating Rooms (ORs) are the economic backbone of nearly every healthcare system, and OR utilization is a key metric. It’s a perishable commodity that trades in time, and once time comes and goes, it’s an opportunity forever lost. Too many times, ORs sit unused, for a variety of reasons, ranging from the early completion of […]

“No block left behind” in operating rooms

Operating Rooms are the economic backbone of a hospital, often generating more than 50 percent of revenues and profits for the institution. A single block of Operating Room time (~500 minutes) can generate $50K – $100K+ in revenue per day, depending on the payor and case mix. ORs are also the most expensive resource to […]

Operating room block scheduling needs an overhaul

One minute of utilized operating room (OR) time can be worth more than $70 in revenue and one minute of staffed OR time can cost $50 or more, making underutilized OR time a huge problem. Each year, roughly 51 million surgeries are performed in the 5,000+ hospitals and 5,000+ surgery centers in the U.S. MGMA […]

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Chapter 1: The Looming Challenge

If you work in the healthcare industry, or even if you’re just an interested observer, you don’t need a book to tell you that the financial pressure is on as never before. A perfect storm of circumstances is swirling together, one that will make survivability, not to mention profitability, a greater challenge for healthcare companies than we’ve seen in the modern era.

As with banks, retailers, and airlines, which had to rapidly enhance their brick-and-mortar footprints with robust online business models—it is the early movers eager to gain new efficiencies that will thrive and gain market share. The slow-to-move and the inefficient will end up being consolidated into larger health systems seeking to expand their geographical footprints.

The pressures on healthcare

Let’s look at just a few of the looming challenges healthcare must meet head-on.

An aging population

By the year 2030, the number of adults sixty-five years of age or older will exceed the number of children eighteen years or younger in the United States. We are living longer than our parents did. Positive news for sure, but problematic for several reasons.

The older we get, the more medical help we need. Older people have more chronic diseases. By 2025, nearly 50 percent of the population will suffer from one or more chronic diseases that will require ongoing medical intervention. This combination of an aging population and an increase in chronic diseases will create a ballooning demand for healthcare services.