ViewPoints Blog

In September, The Economist gathered an engaging and diverse array of leaders from provider, payor, consumer, academic, policy, and technology to explore the global state of flux in healthcare and their optimism for the future shined.

Community Hospitals "independent hospitals of ~300 beds and less have to tackle the same issues as their big-bed brothers or health system sisters. They must lower costs while improving quality, do more with fewer resources, and affiliate effectively with other providers. But they don't have the scale or corporate structure to help with research, data mining, standardization, group purchasing and the like to drive efficiencies.

Misconceptions - if voiced long and loudly enough - will over time be interpreted as fact. And facts are what drive decisions, whether in the boardroom or on Capitol Hill. For some time now, rural and Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) have been saddled with the notion that they are less efficient and adhere to lower standards of quality and patient satisfaction than their urban counterparts. But based on the results of our 2014 Rural Relevance Under Healthcare Reform Study released today, this notion can be challenged with empirical data.

More than 100 nurses told us in a recent survey on nursing obstacles and inefficiencies. A ViewPoints post from iVantage's Michelle Gray Bernhardt.

The changing requirements of the New Healthcare extend far beyond operations and planning. Hospitals large and small are being forced to reexamine their security postures in response to new regulations (like the HITECH Act) and increased scrutiny around data breaches. Long gone are the days when breaches could be dealt with discreetly " nowadays, they are national events that can linger in the public's mind for months, or even years.