Author Archive
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New Clinics
Just a quick update on a few new clinics which recently opened or are under serious consideration (and the trend continues with municipalities and other governmental units). The city of Albany (Georgia) just opened their Employee Wellness Clinic in early December, staffed by a nurse Practitioner. ...
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Johns Hopkins and Pepsico Partner-up for Improved Quality & Price Stability
It was announced this week (December 8, 2011) that PepsiCo has entered into an agreement with Johns Hopkins (brokered by Mercer) to allow employees and dependents (of which PepsiCo has about 250,000) to have certain cardiac and complex joint surgeries done for a specified bundled payment. The paym...
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Take Care Health and Cisco Team Up for Long Distance Care
Take Care Health System took over the management of the Cisco San Jose on-site clinic earlier this year, but the latest news is that the two industry giants (Take Care in clinic management and Cisco in technology) combined their respective strengths and now the providers at the San Jose site will be...
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Cigna Invests in Edington Associates
Dee Edington, Ph.D. of the University of Michigan has been recognized as a leader in wellness for some time now. Cigna has now decided to invest in his private consulting firm, Edington Associates, as a means of furthering their efforts to expand their offerings to their clients to "develop a cul...
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Marathon Health Gets Contract
It was announced at the beginning of this month that Marathon has been given the contract to manage on-site services for the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government employees (about 6,400 of them). This is in Kentucky and apparently will offer primary care services in a medical home model, alo...
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Pay-for-Performance (What’s old is new – or at least updated)
Highmark (a Blue Cross/Blue Shield corporation) reported that its Quality Blue program has demonstrated "clear patterns of improved patient safety and clinical care for our members." They cite data for things like mammography screening rates, diminished Central Line Associated Bloodstream (CLAB)...
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Cost Savings Through Adherence to Level I Pathways
The US Oncology Network announced in a news release this month that a second study on the use of Level I Pathways for the treatment of a specific cancer has been completed and demonstrates significant cost savings without sacrificing quality of care or outcomes. In this case, the study specifica...
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Obesity and Lost Productivity
Two separate studies report dramatic costs associated with obesity in the work force. You can't pick up a newspaper or magazine (or download a newscast) without hearing something about the problem of obesity in the United States today. These two studies just amplify the concern. One was "simpl...
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Medicare Data, Private Research on Hospital Quality
While the data we are pointing you to here is all on Medicare patients (older, sicker??) the resource and findings are worth noting. HealthGrades conducted a study using CMS data for more than 40Million hospital records covering 27 medical diagnoses and/or procedure types at all of the nonfedera...
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Medical Home Models
A core principle of the on-site medical clinic (at least the successful ones) is to be a "medical home" for the employees and dependents they serve. It is one of the biggest differentiating factors between the on-site clinic and your employee's own private physician office. As a result, it isn...
