Canoga Park, Calif., July 21, 2010 - The Phoenix Group, a think tank comprised of leading hospitalist groups, has released a new white paper on the topic of physician-hospital alignment. The paper, entitled "Achieving Physician-Hospital Alignment Through Outsourcing," provides a reasoned analysis of the financial and clinical benefits of the outsourced hospitalist practice to the hospital community.
"There is no doubt that hospitals are committed to better alignment with all physicians-not just hospitalists," said Ron Greeno, MD, CMO, Cogent Healthcare, a member of The Phoenix Group. "But for hospitals to assume that employment will automatically lead to alignment is contradicted by the attempts at hospital-physician integration attempts in the 1990's and also by what we are currently seeing with most hospital employed hospitalist groups. In addition we are seeing that even aligned hospitalist groups are failing because of lack of operational expertise. These programs are very different from most physician practices and require intense management to insure that they create the value and performance hospitals expect in return for their investment."
In the white paper, the Phoenix Group advocates for what it calls the "alignment imperative." This is described as a system of meaningful engagement between physicians and hospital administration to further the hospital's multiple objectives. However, the group believes that outsourced hospitalists are fully capable of meeting the alignment imperative of the hospitals and, thus, eliminating the need for hospitals to employ their own hospitalists.
The white paper points out that instead of arbitrarily employing in-house hospitalist groups, hospitals should first investigate and then compare outsourced hospitalist practices to determine if there is one that is fully committed to the alignment imperative and that has an optimal fit with the hospitals' individual clinical, operational, and financial goals. Phoenix Group members report that many of the early adopters of hospitalist employment are already turning to an outsourcing solution to right their faltering hospital medicine programs.
The Phoenix Group has developed a list of features that the best outsourced hospitalist programs share:
The Phoenix Group concluded that hospitals are better served when they seek mutually beneficial partnerships with outsourced hospitalist practices that are fully committed to the alignment imperative, without the attendant costs and risks of failure associated with managing an employed hospitalist group.
This is the fifth white paper published by the group. To view the white paper in its entirety, go to: www.phoenixgroupwhitepaper.com [1].
About The Phoenix Group
Formed as a think-tank for hospital medicine in 2007, The Phoenix Group's mission is to provide leadership and focus to key issues facing the thousands of hospitalists in private practice in the U.S. today. The Phoenix Group membership collectively represents more than 4,000 hospitalists.
Media Contact:
Elaine Murphy
Scott Public Relations
(818) 610-0270
elaine@scottpublicrelations.com
Links:
[1] http://www.phoenixgroupwhitepaper.com/