That concern is of particular interest to the Federal Trade Commission in evaluating market power versus efficiency in health care consolidation.<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
Van Horn is also collaborating with two Vanderbilt University Medical Center physicians, Dr. Matthew Resnick, assistant professor of urologic surgery, and Dr. David Penson, the Paul V. Hamilton, M.D. and Virginia E. Howd Professor of Urologic Oncology, to investigate how Medicare coverage potentially affects the likelihood that patients receive treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we find very clearly is that patients or patients and providers hold off addressing certain medical issues until age 65, when there is a precipitous spike once Medicare is in place,\u201d Van Horn explains. The challenge is to determine how to change incentives so that patients seek care when it is clinically appropriate, he says.<\/p>\n
The research team also has studied outcomes among prostate cancer patients treated with surgery versus radiotherapy.<\/p>\n
Encouraging compassion reaps benefits<\/h2>\n
Tim Vogus, associate professor of management, looks at compassion practices and their impact on patient perceptions of their care experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou might think compassion and cost effectiveness would be incompatible. But the two drive in the same direction,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n
Compassionate practices, or care, represent the extent to which a hospital recognizes and rewards compassionate acts by its caregivers\u2014and supports its employees in coping with the stresses and traumas experienced at work.\u00a0Vogus has found that compassionate care leads to higher quality and more personalized care, which in turn leads to incentive payments from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) value-based purchasing program.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen hospitals implement support for\u00a0compassion practices, they are actually associated with patient perceptions of higher quality care and a greater likelihood of recommending that hospital to others,\u201d he says. In addition, overall ratings of quality of care improve, and both of those markers are criteria for determining the incentive payments awarded under the CMS program.<\/p>\n Just recognizing people who have gone beyond the call of duty\u2014something that costs hospitals little or no money\u2014significantly improves the ability of the entire organization to offer compassionate care, Vogus has found.<\/p>\n Interacting compassionately among caregivers themselves\u2014by providing forums of support when they have personal issues, lose a patient or need pastoral care\u2014improves overall quality as well, he explains.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s about thinking differently about how we do the work we do in ways that help us deliver higher quality care,\u201d Vogus says. \u201cIt\u2019s not costly. It\u2019s just smart management.\u201d<\/p>\n Vogus also has a stream of work, some with Bruce Cooil, the Dean Samuel B. and Evelyn R. Richmond Professor of Management, on \u201cmindful organizing,\u201d or how people best work together to detect and correct emerging errors and unexpected events. A continuous improvement mindset, he says, is linked to a higher performing team. And a higher performing team is more likely to retain higher quality employees, saving money in hiring, training and team integration.<\/p>\n His research, he explains, is all about \u201cshifting the way people think about work and managing work. We want to drive things that grow revenue and reduce cost.\u201d<\/p>\n Research spearheaded by Ranga Ramanujam, associate professor of management, looks into the notion that reducing inefficiencies and waste is an important measure of quality that is not necessarily in conflict with the goal of improving patient outcomes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe key is to facilitate active, ongoing, real-time involvement of employees on the front lines detecting problems and using their skills to fix problems on the go,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n![\"Tim](\"https:\/\/magazine.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/legacy\/i\/TVogusF13.400x285.jpg\" "\\"TVogusF13.400x285\\"")
<\/a>Reducing inefficiencies improves\u00a0quality of care<\/h2>\n
![\"Ranga](\"https:\/\/magazine.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/legacy\/i\/RamanujamF13_150x214.jpg\" "\\"RamanujamF13_150x214\\"")
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