5 hospital characteristics necessary for success

Hospitals that will survive in the ever-changing health system will share five characteristics, according to healthcare industry leaders who spoke at the Hospital of Tomorrow forum in Washington, D.C., Becker's Hospital Review reported.

Provide coordinated care: J. Michael Henderson, M.D., chief quality officer for the Cleveland Clinic Health System, said healthcare organizations that can provide coordinated care throughout the entire continuum of care will be the most successful. But it's not an easy task. Poor communication, lack of teamwork and insufficient health IT tools can disintegrate a coordinated care model, FierceHealthcare previously reported.

Be open to technology and workflow changes: Hospitals will rely heavily on data mining and analytics to guide care.The healthcare community is pushing to make big data actionable, including through the use of predictive medicine. "You need to be able to handle the patient in a seamless way. If you're going to do that, you have to have clinical information systems that are very effective," said Michael Blaszyk, CFO of Dignity Health, Becker's reported. In Atlanta, doctors at Emory University Hospital are using health IT to combine data collected by multiple machines used in critical care into a single report that provides a comprehensive picture of the patient's condition, FierceHealthIT previously reported.

Make prices transparent: With patients shouldering more of cost burden of care, it is essential for hospitals to make their pricing available for customers, said Toby Cosgrove, M.D., president and CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, according to the article.

Provide risk-based contracts: Hospitals must provide efficient, coordinated care that focus on the patient in order to take on risk. "If you're going to take risk, you have to have a seamless integrated system that is all around the patient," Blaszyk said.

Offer team-based care: With a growing demand for comprehensive healthcare and a physician population that isn't growing as fast as America needs, Henderson said hospitals must give non-physician caregivers the ability to work at the top of their license. Hospitals that embrace teamwork also could help prevent medical errors, encourage reciprocal communication and reduces errors, FierceHealthcare previously reported.

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