May 2012

10 Pillars of Success for Top Healthcare Workplaces

The challenges of the healthcare industry today require hospitals and health systems to apply all available resources to a strategy toward reducing cost and improving quality. One of healthcare organizations’ greatest resources — and often the key to the success of new initiatives — is their employees. Attracting and retaining skilled employees necessitates a nurturing environment that encourages and rewards innovation through both material and nonmaterial benefits.

While tangible benefits, such as health insurance and compensation, are important to employee satisfaction, what may be more important are intangible benefits, such as respect and recognition. “It’s not about the money,” says Paul Spiegelman, founder and CEO of BerylHealth, a company focused on the patient experience. “People want to feel valued.” In fact, most of the following pillars of success involve abstract concepts that, while difficult to define, may ultimately separate a “good” workplace from a “great” one

10 Pillars of Success for Top Healthcare Workplaces Read More »

The Backbone of Healthcare

It has long been said that the backbone of the healthcare system are the nurses that staff their facilities. A nursing staff accounts for twenty-five percent of all healthcare hires, and for good reason. Nurses are expected to assist doctors with almost every aspect of patient care, ensuring that each individual receives the best possible care from start to finish. The amount of work that a single nurse is expected to handle is incredible. It is because of this, and the constant shortage of nurses, that makes having a high quality selection of well-trained nurses on site a top priority of any hospital or healthcare facility. With all this being said, the true pillar of this industry lies with a different group entirely, a group that doesn’t even work within the hospital walls.

Healthcare recruiters are key to the workforce planning and development of hospitals across the nation. They are the ones behind the scenes, handling 100% of the industry hires, making sure that hospitals are filled with top talent ensuring patients receive the best possible care. They may never draw anyone’s blood or prescribe a medication to a patient, but when all the hospitals facilities and procedures run smoothly it is due in large part to the men and women who put in long hours searching, locating, and delivering top talent to the hospitals that need them

The Backbone of Healthcare Read More »

Slow, Much Needed Change, Coming to the Healthcare System

In the next ten years United States healthcare system is going to need to adapt, learning how to provide care to more people for less money. In its current state the healthcare industry is a mess thanks to being overly regulated, highly divided, and excessively complex. While there have been attempts to increase coordination between healthcare providers and improve integration of care, nothing has worked thus far. Some feel we have reached a tipping point however, a sink or swim moment for the industry thanks to the continued increase in costs with no real increase in quality of services provided.

Healthcare providers must become more efficient in order to stay ahead in the upcoming years. One fix that will help cut down no costs is to limit unnecessary medical tests. In a study conducted last year by the Mount Sinai Medical Center and the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York found that there was about 6.8 billion spent yearly on 12 unnecessarily over used test and treatments. Another area that needs massive improvement is the coordinating of treatments with other providers, and offering cost-effective care in areas that are in need of such. The push to make all medical files electronic and easier to access between medical facilities will help to both speed up and improve the care that doctors, surgeons and nurses will be able to provide their patients.

Slow, Much Needed Change, Coming to the Healthcare System Read More »