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Integrated Healthcare Strategies, an independent healthcare consulting firm with offices in Kansas City, Minneapolis, and Dallas, has just released the results of their Spring 2012 Salary Increase, Incentive and Benefit Updates Survey. According to the survey, average 2012 salaries for hospital and health system executives are expected to increase 2.5 percent. Middle management and staff salaries will rise 2.8 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively.

As a recognized leader in the healthcare survey industry, Integrated Healthcare Strategies draws on over 20 years of compensation-survey experience. They conduct a wide variety of compensation surveys, collecting data on executive, director, and manager positions; staff and nursing positions; advanced practice provider positions; and medical director positions. IHS conducts the survey as a series; this is the sixth consecutive survey on this topic

In 2010, the government predicted 3.2 million new jobs in healthcare between 2008 and 2018 — more than any other industry. Part of the growth is driven by aging baby boomers, but there are also other forces at work. For example, a portion of these jobs will be positions that did not exist in healthcare five or 10 years ago.

Accountable/preventive care
Jena Abernathy, vice president of national executive search firm Witt/Kieffer, said the shift toward pay-for-performance and accountable care has helped spur job growth for wellness coaches, nutritionists and other jobs focused on preventive care. “With organizations that are either taking their own path towards accountable care, or partnering to have accountable care organizations, we’re seeing the onset of a lot of positions that are very wellness-oriented,” says Ms. Abernathy. While candidates for wellness coach positions generally don’t need MDs, they must have extensive experience in wellness, such as therapy, nutrition and fitness — suggesting a new value for these types of backgrounds in the industry

A newly released study, the 2011 Physician Retention Survey, shows that the demand for primary care physicians is increasing. According to the survey, 74% of USA medical groups plan to hire more PCPs this year than they have previously.

The proposed hiring increase stems from a projected physician shortage and a high turnover rate for nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Medical groups are more likely to hire advanced practitioners to fill the gaps in patient care.

How can you run an organization when you really can’t control it? If you are the executive of a hospital that is part of an integrated delivery system, that is exactly the challenge you face.

Many common ideas about strong leadership do not apply to system hospitals, and management by edict simply doesn’t work—there are too many stakeholders outside your chain of command. For a better model, you can look to the world of politics.

Based on my experience, integrated delivery systems call for many of the same leadership skills that are critical in small-town government. By implementing these skills into their leadership toolkit, hospital executives can create powerful change even where they don’t have total control

Most experts agree that the healthcare industry is in the midst of a transition from volume-based to value-based healthcare, but the process of changing a deeply ingrained culture of fee-for-service is still unclear. Ken Cohn, MD, MBA, FACS, believes hospitals can start transitioning to a value-based culture now by changing the way physicians interact with patients and each other and dissecting healthcare processes to eliminate waste. Here he discusses five ways hospitals can start thinking in terms of value rather than volume.

Healthcare is a dynamic industry, in which it can sometimes feel as if change is the only constant. An overwhelming amount of information floods administrators on a daily basis, and there is simply not enough time to take it all in. Nonetheless, it is vitally important for early careerists and more experienced individuals alike to adapt to the transforming environment. Identifying and understanding trends is key, but this is easier said than done. Developing a plan to filter relevant information and utilize appropriate sources is necessary. As the great Peter Drucker said, “Today knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement.” Gaining the knowledge most pertinent to personal career goals can help facilitate career advancement

Written by Jaimie Oh | December 19, 2011 Cost-controlling initiatives under President Obama’s landmark healthcare reform law may face greater risk of “running aground” as the country’s deficit continues to grow, according to a Reuters report. The healthcare reform law has drawn intense opposition from conservative leaders, and the question of its constitutionality will be

By: Molly Gamble Mark Neaman, CEO of Evanston, Ill.-based NorthShore University HealthSystem, thinks most provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will survive even if the U.S. Supreme Court rejects the individual health insurance mandate, according to a Highland Park Pioneer Press report. While Mr. Neaman doesn’t think it will overturn the healthcare

Google, the search-engine giant, may be able to help doctors anticipate when they’ll get a surge in the number of patients they see with flu symptoms.

That’s the new finding from a team of doctors, based in Baltimore, who relied on Google Flu Trends, a service that tracks the number of flu-related Internet searches by folks like you and me. In an article this month in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, those doctors, led by Dr. Richard Rothman, an emergency medicine physician at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine describe how data from Google Flu Trends stacked up against conventional systems to track the spread of flu

By: Alicia Caramenico Hospital workers reported only about 14 percent of the patient-safety incidents experienced by Medicare beneficiaries discharged in October 2008, according to a new report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). Hospital staff failed to report the remaining 86 percent of patient harm events, partly due to staff misunderstanding what constitutes patient harm.