Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from December, 2009

Predicting the cost of acute-care nursing

A research project I directed was presented at the 25th Patient Classification Systems International (PCSI) Working Conference in Fukuoka, Japan on November 14, 2009. The project was funded by the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care Nursing Secretariat. It investigate the use of proxies to estimate nursing workload on an individual patient basis. The link to the presentation write up is http://bit.ly/NB_PCSI

Retail Healthcare Lowering cost

The majority of us don't need high cost interventions in health care. We may need the occasional check-up, flu shot or prescription. Our family doctor can schedule an annual physical and for the other common complains see you for 15-20 minutes. In consulting we are all aware of the 80-20 rule or Pareto principal. It goes like this, 20% of the people usually result in 80% of the costs. It is a general rule that seems to pop-up everywhere. And it is no surprise that it is the case in health care. High cost of care endangers our health care system. We can apply our attention to 80% of the population and help deliver the low cost health care more efficiency. Or we can apply our attention to the 20% or the population that drive the majority of the high-cost of health care. The value of eHealth is still unproved, yet the potential benefits is significant. Using electronic health records and online health systems means greater integration of care and data. Quality improvements can be