mommyjenlin

Just about everyone has some kind of healthcare Center of Excellence (CoE), and these programs are continually marketed by healthcare organizations. Mostly it’s marketing by screaming at the market place that you have a Center of Excellence. But, as healthcare moves to a patient-centered or consumer-centric market depending in what you believe, can hospitals continue to just claim having a Center of Excellence without price experience and outcomes data to support the claim? I think that answer is no. You can still say you have a Center of Excellence in an effort to grow share, revenue and for obtaining new payment agreements. But if that effort is not supported by price, experience and outcomes information for the healthcare consumer, then how do you prove to the newly minted healthcare insurance card carrying consumer in 2014, that your CoE is better than the one down the street? The point here is that proud pronouncements on Centers of Excellence without transparency will become a th...

Just about everyone has some kind of healthcare Center of Excellence and these programs are continually marketed by healthcare organizations. But does that marketing change in shared-risk or value-based payment environment? And if it does, then how do you market a Center of Excellence? I believe that yes, the new healthcare payment models change the marketing and value of Centers of Excellence. And that is good at many different levels. In a shared-risk or value based payment environment, you will need qualitative and objective proof. That proof can come in many different forms, be it via outcomes, technology, accreditation, price, satisfaction etc. Sure you can still say you have a Center of Excellence in an effort to obtain new payment agreements. But if that effort is not supported by pricing and outcomes transparency, then how do you prove to the newly minted healthcare insurance card carrying consumer in 2014, that yours is better than the one down the street? The point here is th...

Previously, I authored a couple of blogs on the Re-emergence of Centers of Excellence (CoE) due to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), as well as starting a most interesting discussion on LinkedIn in the American College of Healthcare Executives Group . Those blogs and discussion really focused more on the operational and quality of care characteristics of a CoE than marketing. The point being that with the rise of healthcare consumerism driven by many factors outside the control of healthcare providers, that you could no longer look around and just say that you have a CoE in a particular service-line or disease -state. So, if as a leader in your healthcare organization you have come to realize that the healthcare consumer deserves more than just the old ways of doing things, you have really looked at your self-described CoEs and beefed them up to true reflections of organizational and quality of care excellence, then just maybe you are ready to begin marketing ...

An interesting discussion started on LinkedIn in the American College of Healthcare Executives Group regarding my original blog on the Re-Emergence of Centers of Excellence. The questions as asked by Howard Gershon, Principal, New Heights Group, LLC., was how would I define a Center of Excellence? A fair question since I had not done that in the original post. My thanks also to L. Elizabeth Mullikin, FACHE, Executive Director, Neurosciences Institute at John Muir Health, Leon Harris, Administrative Resident, Providence Hospital and Roy Orr, FACHE, Consultant, Firethorne Interim Hospital Consulting for their contributions to the discussion. I have seen healthcare organizations all over the board on the topic of Centers of Excellence. Here are the attributes that I consider to make up a Center of Excellence for any disease-state. The ones added by Elizabeth, Leon and Roy are an asterisk. These attributes are not necessarily in order of importance. Board certified specialist and subspecia...

Are you ready? Ready for the re-emergence of Centers of Excellence under healthcare reform? Centers of Excellence for the longest time were really nothing more than someone in a hospital or a group of doctors telling everyone that they were a Center of Excellence (CoE) for Cardiology, or Oncology, or Neuroscience, or Women's Health to name a few of the more "popular" CoEs. With little objective data- outcomes in areas such as financial, quality, satisfaction etc, many healthcare institution simply said they were a CoE for a particular service line. A little paint here, new wallpaper there, designate an unused hospital floor or wing the area, maybe even generate some fundraising and donation opportunities to name it after someone of community note and presto, a Center of Excellence. Okay, that was probably a little overboard for some organizations took CoEs seriously and did have objective financial and quality measures which they communicated the benefits of to Board, pay...