- Data & Analytics
Implementing Unique Device Identifiers: Are You Ready?
Unique device identifiers (UDIs) have begun their integration into hospitals and their supply chains. Supply chain leaders are preparing to take the next step in their journey to ensure patients receive high quality products that improve outcomes – a...
- Data & Analytics
RSNA 2016: Beyond Imaging - The AI Will Read Your Images Now
No two words struck more fear into the hearts of radiologists in 2016 than “artificial” and “intelligence,” unless you added “deep learning” to the mix. Some radiologists have expressed concern that big imaging data coul...
- Data & Analytics
Data Detectives: Making an Impact in Health Care
One of the reasons I find health care to be such an exciting field to work in is the vast amount of data it produces and the fact that there’s always a unique set of challenges with each data set. And with each challenge, there’s also an opport...
- Data & Analytics
Driving Clinical Improvement Needs More Than Data
I want to dispel a common myth: the myth that there is not enough data or enough of the right data to accomplish meaningful clinical improvement. The fact is we have enough data to reach the ultimate pursuit: reducing clinical variation and improving quali...
- Data & Analytics
The 3 C's of a Healthy Analytics Program
With health care spending in the United States now exceeding $3 trillion, and a recent government report stating that Medicare could become insolvent by 2026, it’s critical health care providers have a clinical analytics program to measure and evalua...
- Data & Analytics
In Health Care Performance Improvement, It’s Really About Knowing Where We Are Going
My favorite philosopher, Yogi Berra, once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up somewhere else.” It’s an easy argument to show that we continually end up somewhere else in our current health care performa...
- Data & Analytics
Demographic Data Collection and Use: Pandora’s Box or Treasure Trove?
Health care organizations collect patient demographic data including race, ethnicity and language (REAL) to fulfill meaningful use attestation, meet federal accreditation requirements and adhere to CLAS standards (Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate ...
- Data & Analytics
The Future is Now: Artificial Intelligence in Health Care
Hundreds of companies are developing medical artificial intelligence applications with billions of dollars in venture capital. Adoption is in the early stages; helping physicians with image interpretation and diagnostic support. But make no mistake, AI is ...
- Data & Analytics
There’s No Easy Button For Improving Risk-Adjusted Mortality
When hospital leaders are presented withperformance improvement opportunities uncovered through Vizient's clinical benchmarking data, it’s not uncommon for them to first look for reasons for below-average performancerather than consider what changes could ...
- Data & Analytics
Winning More by Losing Less: Taking a Cue from Baseball
With the major league baseball playoffs underway, Vizient Research Institute executive director Tom Robertson draws parallels between the national pastime and the typical medical center or health system’s financial business model. In this latest essay, Tom...
- Data & Analytics
Bickering in the Back Seat: The Case for All Payer Pricing
In his latest essay entitled “Bickering in the Back Seat: The Case for All Payer Pricing”, Vizient Research Institute executive director Tom Robertson reminisces about a common childhood memory while contemplating the future direction of health care financ...
- Data & Analytics
Health Care Pricing, Doorbells and Peanut Shells
The difference incharges for identical services depending on the source of payment is difficult for patients to understand, and even more difficult for providers to explain. With more intense scrutiny on private sector prices arising from higher insurance ...
- Data & Analytics
The Power of an Enterprise-wide, Data-driven Strategy
Health systems and providers continue to face ongoing challenges associated with delivering high-quality, cost-effective care while balancing decreasing reimbursements and new value-based payment models. COVID-19 has heightened the need for organizations t...
- Data & Analytics
Defying Gravity: What if Not Everything Returns to Normal?
In his latest blog post entitled “Defying Gravity: What if Not Everything Returns to Normal?”, Vizient Research Institute Executive Director Tom Robertson provides a glimpse into the Institute’s most recent economic study. Launched at the outset of the glo...
- Data & Analytics
Health Care Over the Rainbow
"The global pandemic of 2020 figuratively swept through the health care landscape like a Kansas cyclone...in what felt like an instant, everything was up in the air.” In his latest blog posting entitled Health Care Over the Rainbow, Vizient Research Instit...
- Data & Analytics
Seeing Sideways While Moving Forward
It’s natural to focus on the horizon as clinical volumes return to something approaching normal. Read why we need to keep our eyes moving to find those patients who should be returning but aren’t...not only including—but especially—when they can’t afford t...
- Data & Analytics
Driver’s Ed and Molecular Biology
In his latest blog posting entitled Driver’s Ed and Molecular Biology, Vizient Research Institute executive director Tom Robertson reflects on a sense of gratitude and optimism over receiving the COVID vaccine.
- Data & Analytics
CMS Updates its Star Ratings: A Simpler Methodological Approach Provides Clarity Needed to Drive Change
Whether you are a hospital administrator, a physician, a nurse, or other member of your hospital’s family,you know well the true north of our daily purpose is to provide quality health care to patients. And the compass that helps us navigate that course is...
- Data & Analytics
Medicine, Mortgages and the Middle Class
In his latest blog posting entitled “Medicine, Mortgages and the Middle Class”, Vizient Research Institute executive director Tom Robertson takes a new look at an old economic concept that will change the way we think about health care spending.
- Data & Analytics
EHRs, Air Traffic Control and Unmet Expectations
Imagine you’re on a commercial jet headed from Beijing to Paris and you’re descending over the Netherlands through heavy cloud cover with limited visibility. Your pilot contacts air traffic control in Amsterdam for instructions, speaking Mandarin Chinese. ...
- Data & Analytics
Spinning Wheels, Flashing Lights and Health Care Pricing
Health care pricing—in particular, the variability in what different payers pay providers for the same services—can seem to takeon elements of classic TV game showsas the amount the provider gets paid has less to do with the cost of care and is more depend...
- Data & Analytics
The Future of Health Care: COVID’s Impact and the Change That Comes with It
For most of 2020, COVID-19 disrupted and significantly altered the infrastructure of the world’s industries, including health care delivery and services. But at what level can we expect health care to return to pre-pandemic levels? What are the long-term e...
- Data & Analytics
A Fire Hydrant, a Chain-Link Fence and the Health Care Labor Shortage
Health care has not been spared from a nationwide labor shortage. This blog explores how the traditional payment system can complicate an already challenging situation and the implications for patient care and ongoing efforts to address the issue of health...