Hospital Referral Regions or HRRs are 306 mutually exclusive regions, constructed by aggregating the residential zip codes from which Medicare beneficiaries traveled for major cardiovascular and neurological surgical procedures. Each local referral region has at least one hospital where these complex surgical procedures are performed. The HRR names reflect the location (city or town) where […]
This recent study from the Brookings Institution compares value performance in healthcare in three states: New York, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Data bases developed in each state in addition to Medicare and Medicaid data was used to make the comparisons. Although it is difficult to compare across all three states, in Wisconsin there are certain communities […]
PCORI was established as a result of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2009. PCORI has recently released it’s research agenda for public comment.Release of approximately $125 million dollars for the research will occur this year. The proposed research agenda includes: 1.Comparative assessments of prevention,diagnosis and treatment options. The research goal is to […]
Kim Barnas has become a national leader in implementing lean. Her recent article in the Joint commission’s Journal of Quality and Patient Safety describes the work she initiated on the Business Performance System which is the lean management system at ThedaCare. The results of this new leader standard work are phenomenal. It includes leaders improving […]
Don Berwick’s tenure as CMS administrator was short but one thing he came away with was the fact that American healthcare must become radically more efficient. He called out a few high performers. “If you doubt that we know what to do, visit Denver Health or ThedaCare or Virginia Mason, and see the Toyota principles […]
This article describes why ThedaCare and Bellin Health in Green Bay have decided to participate in the pioneer ACO program. The bottom line is these organizations believe they need to provide leadership for the rest of country on lowering cost and improving quality. This is something they have been focused on for years anyway and […]
Thank you Don for trying, it’s too bad politicians never understood the value you bring to the administrator position at CMS. It’s remarkable how a few comments over an entire career can be misinterpreted by people who never go to the gemba to find out the truth. Thanks for your sacrifice leaving IHI and your […]
CMS has changed a number of rules regarding data release.There are still many problems and concerns from the perspective of the leadership of the Wisconsin Health Information organization which is the All Payer Claims Data Base created for Wisconsin. These problems,unless corrected, may not allow for significant intergration of the Medicare data with other claims […]
A billion dollars will be awarded in grants open to providers,payers,local government,public-private partnerships,and multi-payer collaboratives. Yesterday, the Innovation Center announced the Health Care Innovation Challenge. On the call, ThedaCare was mentioned by Dr. Gilfillin as an example of an innovative organization. This new program will award up to a total of $1 billion in grants […]
An article released November 9th compared the U.S. to 10 other countries and found that care is more costly and not as good as most of the comparison countries The United States ranks near the bottom of many measures in caring for the sickest patients compared to other nations, according to a study of 11 […]
