Roji Intel Blog

Theresa Hush 0
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Consumers & PatientsFuture of Health CareValue-Based Health Care
October 16, 2019

The Hedge Bet for Risk is Patient Experience

Creating a good Patient Experience in health care has gained little traction, despite being touted as one of the Triple Aim’s key goals in Value-Based Health Care. Health systems have been more focused on how to increase patients via health plan negotiations and consolidating regional providers, rather than focusing on the slower paced process of improving customer appeal. But now Patient Experience appears to be gaining some attention, and some forward-thinking providers are innovating to be more attractive to patients. Why? Because in the fiscal landscape of Risk, growing patient volume is essential. Providers are beginning to realize that there…
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Theresa Hush 0
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Consumers & PatientsFuture of Health CareMedical Decision-MakingValue-Based Health Care
October 2, 2019

How Consumers Can Choose Quality in Value-Based Health Care

In our last article on how Quality should be reflected in Value-Based Health Care, we looked at the problematic route of quality measurement and reporting. The intent to develop payment for quality has resulted in a complex measurement system that produced provider-specific performance scores across hundreds of measures, yet has failed to advance achievement of better health care outcomes. The system creates flexibility for providers by allowing choice of measures, which eliminates consumers’ ability to see differences among providers. The quality agenda needs to mature. In its developmental period, there was a need to achieve consensus on the standard of…
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Theresa Hush 0
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Consumers & PatientsFuture of Health CareValue-Based Health Care
September 25, 2019

Emergency Rooms Cannot Be the Only Option for “Regular Sick” People in Value-Based Care

I don’t normally write articles on health care based on personal experience. Fortunately, my health is good and my non-routine health care mostly involves orthopedic injuries. Those injuries have taken me more than once to hospital emergency rooms, where I usually am able to leave afterwards and not, instead, have surgery. No chronic illnesses and no prescription meds. I realize that I am a rarity. In the context of Value-Based Health Care (VBHC), most administrators assess emergency department use as optional. As if, except for traumatic injuries, orthopedic injuries, and heart attacks, doctor-office visits are an available alternative to going…
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Theresa Hush 0
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Consumers & PatientsFuture of Health CareValue-Based Health CareWomen and Health Care
June 12, 2019

Get the eBook “Not Second Best: Inject Value in Women’s Health Care”

Six months ago, I started writing about women’s health, in response to this simple question: What trends are emerging in health care for 2019? The New Year is filled with predictions about what is coming, and I thought this year’s list from health care leaders was too “last-year.” Artificial intelligence, medical science advancements in biologicals and genetic therapies, and business consolidation are not coming; they are already here and will simply go further. Witnessing the debate about health care rights in the country, and the increasing distrust of health care by consumers, I observed that most of those speaking are…
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Theresa Hush 0
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Consumers & PatientsFuture of Health CareValue-Based Health CareWomen and Health Care
May 15, 2019

How Providers Must Improve Value in Women’s Health

Writing the Roji Health Intelligence® series on gender disparities and other women’s health issues has been a revelation. As a woman who has worked in so many parts of the health care industry, I was already aware of basic gender disparities, risk levels, incidence of disease, and economic issues that are predominant among women. Most women in health care have had their knowledge and judgment doubted as both patients and professionals. Women everywhere encounter the economic barriers associated with affordable health care, some much worse than others, and every woman who is a mother struggles with balancing the interests of…
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Theresa Hush 0
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Consumers & PatientsFuture of Health CareValue-Based Health CareWomen and Health Care
May 1, 2019

Do “Women’s Health Centers” and Services Deliver on Value-Based Health Care?

Women make an astounding 80 percent of health care decisions for themselves and their families. But there’s a disconnect between what women need and how providers have organized health care for them. While Value-Based Health Care (VBHC) is struggling to achieve more value for every health care dollar spent, providers are simultaneously sabotaging women in their customer base. How? This might surprise you: through promotion of “women’s health” services. While providers may have good intentions for offering a dedicated place for women’s health needs, those services have actually fragmented care for women, especially those with more complex conditions. Let’s evaluate…
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Theresa Hush 0
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Consumers & PatientsFuture of Health CareValue-Based Health CareWomen and Health Care
February 27, 2019

How Gender Discrimination Against Women Physicians Handicaps Value and Patient Care

We need to get women’s health care right. This is not a parochial issue, important only to women, and disconnected from Value-Based Health Care. Gender disparity in health care is real, with significant ramifications for outcomes—for the patients, certainly, as well as for providers’ ability to succeed under risk. Just as quality measurement is necessary to improving quality, achieving the triple aim of quality, cost and patient experience must include both measurement and elimination of gender and gender-race impediments. ACOs and providers accept that they must help patients overcome social attributes of health if those patients are to improve. Yet…
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Robert McNutt, M.D. 0
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Consumers & PatientsFuture of Health CareMedical Decision-MakingResearch
February 13, 2019

If Not Now, It’s Too Late: Clinical Science Needs Fixing

In 1967, the year I graduated from high school, my family’s television required “rabbit ear” antennae with perched aluminum foil. Our farming family had little time to watch TV, but when we did, the ritual included a side trip to reset the antennae’s angle to ensure good reception. Today, I watch a clear picture on myriad devices, no antennae needed. In the 1980s, my trips to a library to find medical literature were few. A single trip to the library would take hours and net only a small number of papers. Now, I obtain articles on any topic in a…
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Theresa Hush 1
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Consumers & PatientsFuture of Health CareMedical Decision-MakingWomen and Health Care
January 30, 2019

Lessons in Health Care Empowerment from Women With Breast Cancer

For the one in eight women who will get breast cancer—more than 242,000 new cases were reported in 2015, alone, according to the CDC’s most recent data—the treatment is bad enough. Even more frightening is the uncertainty of what lies ahead. Will the cancer recur? And if so, when, and what’s next? Breast cancer kills 40,000 American women each year. Fear is a powerful motivator, because many women experience a recurrence of disease years after they were declared “cancer free.” Nonetheless, women with breast cancer have created an extraordinary movement that has changed how people see the disease and how…
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Theresa Hush 0
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Consumers & PatientsFuture of Health CareWomen and Health Care
January 16, 2019

The Real Trend to Watch in 2019: #MeToo for Health Care

Health care pundits need to sharpen their game. Year-end trend predictions are mostly old news. Growth of Artificial Intelligence and other technologies, entry of non-traditional business in health care, and pressure on the bottom line from Value-Based Health Care—all have been well underway for several years. Further, these developments only reinforce health care providers’ inward focus on managing internal machinery and health care financing, instead of real health care. But consider this underreported trend that promises to reshape demand and shake up the supply of health care services: We are in the midst of a dramatic transformation of health care…
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