Leading The Charge

Something Caught Our Eye Recently

Objective Health is reporting that between 2009 and 2011, only about 10% of the nation’s hospitals were considered to be aggressively pursuing cost-cutting measures in their operations. We’re not sure how they’re defining “aggressive,” but we imagine that it can mean anything from cutting staff to reducing capital expenditures to simply streamlining medical records management with updated ERM technologies.

Given the amount of time, effort, and money required to revamp operations to be more efficient and cost-effective, it’s no surprise that hospitals employing cost reduction measures tend to be larger (more than 500 beds), with deeper pockets, and the ability to absorb short-term losses in exchange for long-term gains.

According to Objective Health’s review, hospitals are largely targeting traditionally costly operational areas like general surgery, obstetrics, and neonatal care.  In fact, nearly half of all savings, on average $1,200 per case, have come from reduction and optimization efforts in those disciplines likely because they tend to have the highest traffic, highest turnover, and require the largest number of technological assets and staff to manage. Specialties like neuromedicine, vascular surgery on the other hand, account for less than 5% of contributed savings because, well, they’re specialties and tend to have fewer overall cases than more general practices.

What We Found Interesting

What we found interesting is that despite skyrocketing healthcare costs and seemingly diminished levels of care squarely at the front of the public’s mind, only a small percentage of hospitals have begun taking the steps necessary to truly transform their operations to be leaner and more efficient to start bringing healthcare costs down for everyone. Our guess is that because cost cutting often leads to cuts in patient care as well, it’s clearly something healthcare providers want to avoid. If they can’t cut costs without affecting the level of care they can provide, the safer option may be to just stand pat.

Where We Fit In

This scenario is exactly the reason we founded Cohealo. We believe that healthcare systems of all sizes—not just the big ones—should have the ability to reduce their costs and be more operationally efficient without adversely impacting patient care. With a more intelligent approach to managing the assets a healthcare system already has, we can help effectively lower costs without affecting patient care. In fact, in many cases, patient care will actually improve because the right medical technologies and resources will be available on-demand, right when and where they’re needed.

With Cohealo’s intelligent data analysis platform, cloud-based collaborative asset scheduling solution, and timely, professional equipment delivery, surgical equipment will always be where it belongs:  accessible to any doctor in the system, anytime, and from virtually any location.

Progress is a Good Thing

Understanding equipment usage trends throughout a system is a crucial step in making more precise purchasing decisions, controlling costs, and providing the best possible care to patients. Our innovative approach to asset management produces in-depth, real-time visibility into equipment utilization and identifies under-utilization bottlenecks that cost systems money and your doctors critical minutes.

It’s encouraging that hospitals and healthcare systems are moving from the planning stage into execution. We just hope that the smaller systems won’t be deterred from giving it a try because they fear the impact a wrong move could have on patient care. There are other options available, and we’re here to help find them.