by Dr. Kenneth H. Cohn

In Hospital Competition: The Unusual Suspects, Tony Chen wrote that in addition to physicians, other areas of competition--such as insurance companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, drug stores, wellness providers, and hotel--are broadening competition for healthcare dollars.

In the comment section, Ron Whiting wrote, "A complete alignment of interests particularly between hospitals and physicians is required to effect real change in hospital care." As a practicing surgeon, I remain mystified over the operational definition of "complete alignment"; in Collaborative Mentality, I wrote about mindset differences between physicians and hospital leaders.

Nevertheless, my cluelessness about how to achieve the state of complete alignment will not stop me from pointing out a few ways that we can collaborate better to improve financial and clinical outcomes for our communities:

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by Christopher Cornue

I've written before about the unique opportunity we have in the United States to pilot many solutions to our healthcare needs and challenges. We have 50 unique laboratories in which we can try these solutions...and hopefully some wonderful and innovative strategies will emerge to help us all.

Tuesday saw the culmination of many long and tireless hours of work in Colorado with the signing of the Colorado Healthcare Affordability Act. While this act isn't unique in the United States (approximately 22 other programs exist in other states, under other titles such as "Provider Fee" or "Provider Tax"), this particular act has some unique aspects to it, which I'll describe in a second.

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by Tony Chen

I'm very excited to announce our newest blogger at Hospital Impact: Mr. Joe Wasserman.

Wasserman is the President and CEO of Lakeland Healthcare, a three-hospital system that includes two long-term facilities, an assisted living center, 3,500 associates, and 325 physicians located in Southwest Michigan. He has been in this role since 1985.

Joe received his Masters of Health Services Administration from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. He is also a Fellow of the ACHE.

Joe: Welcome to the community and the team, and we look forward to working with you.

by Nick Jacobs

The other day I received a phone call from a newspaper. One of its employees had heard me speak at a leadership conference on transformational leadership. She then went to her publisher and described all of the nontraditional things that had been instituted at my former place of employment in Windber, PA. The call was to ask me to make a presentation to the employees of that newspaper about re-inventing their organization. Interestingly, I had recently returned from a print-related company that had done just that some 15 or so years earlier. Today it has more engineers working for it than pressmen, and the result of its journey into the creative process has been success beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

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by Dan Bowman
Associate Editor - FierceHealthIT

By all indications, this year's HIMSS09 show in Chicago will be extremely thought provoking--11 sessions are dedicated to the economic stimulus package and the effects it will have on the healthcare landscape.

What's more, healthcare technology seems to be coming of age rather rapidly. Between the push for mandatory adoption of electronic medical records and the expanding efforts by physicians and organizations to be relevant in a Health 2.0 world, the healthcare of yesterday is being swept aside to make way for the practices of tomorrow. Compliance issues for new technology and physician-oriented social media networks were among the hot topics of FierceHealthIT's preview webinar, which took place this past Tuesday.

Count us, at FierceHealthIT, among those who have jumped on the bandwagon. Both Anne Zieger--Editor-In-Chief of FierceHealthIT--and I will be sending out live updates from HIMSS09 via Twitter; furthermore, we'll provide you with in-depth stories from various keynotes and educational sessions. If you're unable to attend this year's conference, we've got you covered.

by Debora Hendrickson

The Institute of Medicine estimates that nationwide, preventable medical errors in hospitals unintentionally kill the equivalent of one jumbo jet crashing each day. While preventable medical errors are the last thing a patient should have to worry about when he or she is admitted to a hospital, it might surprise most people to know how much time hospital administrators and clinicians spend with their colleagues, consultants and medical agencies to work to eliminate all preventable medical mistakes.

I am the Executive Director of Professional Services at Eden Medical Center, one of the Sutter Health hospitals in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our hospital treats approximately 1,000 in-patients per month. I chair our Medical Center’s Patient Safety Committee, which was formed almost a decade ago. I spend many hours each month working with our physicians, managers, nurses and virtually all members of the medical center team impacting our patient’s environment of care to develop and implement best practices for our health care teams so that we never have a "never event"--an error that should never happen in a hospital.

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