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Six Key Features of Successful
Cardiac Service Lines

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Over the last few years, hospitals, health systems and physicians have renewed their focus on planning and organizing cardiac services. The reasons for this are as diverse as the services themselves:

• Continuing conflict at the specialty level over how best to provide care, with all of the economic, clinical, and political intrigue that answering this question entails.
• Cardiac services remain among the most profitable provided by any hospital, despite recent reimbursement challenges.
• Rapidly-changing technology, with accompanying high levels of ongoing capital investment.
• Difficulty recruiting key specialties.
• High (and highly public) levels of quality reporting, with cardiac services in many markets serving as a bellwether for perceived quality of the hospital as a whole.
• Increased competition from new and smaller programs.
• Rise of pay-for-performance and value-based purchasing.

These pressures have led many organizations to rethink the way they approach cardiac service lines with goals of improving physician alignment, maximizing market share, and making better decisions. In this presentation, we reviewed six critical decisions that hospitals need to address in designing their cardiac lines, with a discussion of advantages and disadvantages of various approaches to program governance, financial management, physician alignment, and other critical attributes.

The featured presenters for this session were:

• Kevin M. Kennedy, Principal, ECG Management Consultants, Inc.
  
  Since coming to ECG in 1991, Mr. Kennedy has worked with hospitals and physicians on service line planning, hospital-physician relations, strategy and business development, and operational turnarounds. His recent experience includes several projects defining strategy for hospital cardiac service lines, organizing service line management and governance structures, and developing employment arrangements for cardiologists and cardiovascular surgeons.
  
  
• Joseph Knapp, MD, Medical Director, International Heart Institute of Montana
  
  Dr. Joseph Knapp will present a case study of International Heart Institute (IHI) of Montana, a successful cardiac program integrated with Providence St. Patrick Hospital and Health Sciences Center of Missoula, Montana. IHI has won numerous awards for program excellence including multiple mentions as a “top 100” heart program, and recently implemented a physician-driven governance structure. St. Patricks recently received a #1 national ranking in clinical quality in a Premier/CMS demonstration program. Dr. Knapp is executive medical director of IHI and has been a practicing cardiologist since 1975.

The moderator for this session was:

• Stephen F. Messinger, Principal, ECG

These sessions are complimentary to our clients, industry colleagues, and other interested parties. ECG reserves the right to deny access to those individuals who may pose a conflict of interest to ECG.

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