Executive Women in Healthcare's
Executive Briefing & Exchange

ACS Healthcare Solutions is the exclusive sponsor of "Executive Briefing & Exchange," a bi-weekly newsletter sent to more than 1,000 female C-level leaders in health systems nationwide. The following are among the articles our experienced professionals have authored for the newsletter:

April 23, 2007 – “Value Based Purchasing Comes to Health Care” by Deb White, RHIA, CCS, ACS Healthcare Solutions, discusses how the process of “shopping around” impacts the healthcare industry through value-based purchasing, pay-for-performance, and other quality initiatives aimed at improving healthcare delivery. The article also includes a list of principles provider organizations can refer to before implementing a VBP system.

April 9, 2007 – “A Guide for Executives:  Making Your Writing Work for You” by Amy O’Connor, Editor, ACS Healthcare Solutions, gives executives tips for making the most of their written communications. The article points out keys to effective writing, common pitfalls to avoid, frequent confusions in word usage to watch out for, and various tips designed to improve executives’ writing.

March 26, 2007 – “PE – An Exercise for Improving Financial Health” by Shelia Batson, Consultant/Revenue Cycle Management, ACS Healthcare Solutions, gives executives tips for implementing a performance evaluation program that will help pinpoint problems in these key areas: denials management; contract reimbursement; denied not final billed (DNFB); medical necessity; administrative and charity write-offs; front-end collection procedures; accounts receivable collection; and management of self-pay accounts.

March 12, 2007 | “Considerations for Creating a Regional Business Office” by Barbara Jamison, MBA, RHIA, Senior Management Consultant, ACS Healthcare Solutions, outlines steps to updating front- and back-end services and processes once a business office is regionalized. The article points to ensuring accurate information for patient identification, treatments, and billing as critical first steps.

Feb. 26, 2007 | “Mapping the Road to Success in Clinical Transformation” by Ann Keillor, EdD, RN and Doug Smith, MS, RPh, ACS Healthcare Solutions - A follow-up to a previous article, which identified and evaluated the risks associated with clinical transformation. This article focuses on ways to avoid such perils, including developing a process map, defining the clinical vision, defining the current state, and getting everyone to “think futuristically.”

Feb. 12, 2007 | “Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for E-Discovery” by Deb White, RHIA, CCS, ACS Healthcare Solutions, highlights confidentiality—namely ways healthcare information professionals are working to protect medical records data through electronic discovery amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which govern not only personal health information, but all electronic documentation produced in the course of business, including e-mail.

January 22, 2007 | “The Growing Importance of Data in Healthcare” by Jeffrey C. Bauer, PhD., and Phillip L. Polakoff, MD, MPH, MEnv.SC, ACS Healthcare Solutions, addresses the need for executives to more greatly examine essential healthcare data, and urges them to not only evaluate the quality of existing data, but consider increasing the quantity of certain data collected.

January 8, 2007 | “Keys to Eliminating Waste and Improving Performance in Patient Registration” by Barb Jamison, MBA, RHIA, Senior Consultant, ACS Healthcare Solutions, emphasizes how critical patient registration is to the entire process of providing care and being paid for it. The article stresses the importance of accuracy, process standardization, organized training, and performance monitoring.

December 26, 2006 | “Avoiding a ‘Death March’ in Clinical Transformation” by Ann Keillor, EdD, RN, ACS Healthcare Solutions, considers clinical transformation as a “key to survival” during a time when revenue is “increasingly being linked to improvements in patient safety, outcomes, and other concrete measures of improvement in clinical processes.” The article provides tips on how to avoid a “death march” when it comes to clinical transformation.

November 27, 2006 | “Leveraging Success in Your ED Process Redesign Project” by John Bednarski, RN, ACS Healthcare Solutions, outlines best practices for healthcare executives looking to invest in their emergency department. Specifically, the article encourages involvement with front-line stakeholders early on, development of a process improvement plan, inclusion of computerized records, consideration of downtime planning, and other key tips for success.

November 13, 2006 | “A ‘Simple Sort’ of Duties” by Donna Rieck, RHIA, Consultant, ACS Healthcare Solutions, provides a view of hospital operations from the perspective of an experienced health information management department leader. The article stresses that senior executives can enhance organizational performance by making their middle managers aware of tools like the “simple sort.”

October 23, 2006 | “Preparing for the New Frontier: Healthcare Spending for Information Technology” by Georgene Snyder, Chief Operating Officer, ACS Healthcare Solutions, addresses healthcare information technology spending predictions, and offers strategies for successfully tackling predicted challenges facing the healthcare industry.

October 23, 2006 | “Thinking Like a Futurist” by Jeffrey C. Bauer, PhD, ACS Healthcare Solutions, offers a futurist’s thoughts on how healthcare executives “can lead their organizations to better outcomes than those to be expected in the absence of formal efforts for approaching the future.”