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Hospitals strategize to increase patient volume

Hospitalist Leadership Connection, August 15, 2007

Increasing efficiency, a top item on every hospital administrator's agenda, can only go so far. Roger Forgey, senior vice president of regional operations and business development for Chattanooga-based Erlanger Health System, sums up what every hospital executive knows: "As payments continue to go down, it takes more volume to be successful, or just to survive, in healthcare."

While many hospitals focus on increasing market share in their primary service area, others are fishing in new waters. But what's the best way to reel patients in?

Wrangell (AK) Medical Center, a tiny critical-access hospital, uses flowers and greeting cards to woo discharge planners from larger facilities. Erlanger, an academic medical center, specifically avoids advertising to some of the patients it hopes to treat. And Cleveland Clinic, ranked among the top providers in the nation, places its own employed physicians in other hospitals around the country.

Although each has a different mission, and different strategies, the three hospitals are increasing patient volume by casting their nets broadly.

To view the complete article, go to www.healthleadersmedia.com/magazine/view_magazine_feature.cfm?content_id=90878&category_id=154.

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