Management engineering unit serves two-hospital system

The multihospital structure at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia forces the management engineering department to concentrate an increasing amount of its time on management effectiveness activities. Although the center's structure creates some internal time-management problems for the department, its staff members believe that the drawbacks are small when they are compared with the fact that their activities can, and do, have a positive effect on more than one institution.

Vertically linked organizations hold challenges and opportunities

As more and more hospitals integrate their services with other health care facilities, the need to explore the challenges and opportunities associated with such arrangements grows proportionately. This study of vertically integrated health care organizations places special emphasis on the internal relationships associated with such factors as structure and control, team building, and developing new initiatives.

Consortium upgrades 12 hospitals' infection control programs

A consortium's infection control nurse and physician epidemiologists boost the member hospitals' infection control efforts through onsite rounds, establishment of group standards, reports on each hospitals' performance, ongoing education, medicolegal assistance, monitoring of use of isolation evaluation of infection control products, and other activities.

Development of an in-house clinical engineering shared service

Within the Greenville, South Carolina, Hospital System, an in-house Clinical Engineering Department is being developed as a shared service. This paper discusses the background for this program in a multihospital system. Several aspects of the program, including staffing, equipment needs, scheduling, participation in system activities, and some future possibilities for department expansion are also presented.

Baptist and Catholic hospitals share to save money, improve services

Highlands Medical Center, Louisville, is the first instance of a Baptist-Catholic sharing arrangement in the nation. Without attempting to alter the religious dedication or legal operation of either of the two hospitals involved, the Highlands Center arrangement helps the facilities and their patients to save money and the hospitals to provide their community with a greater range of services at the lowest possible cost.

The myth and the reality of shared services

Shared service arrangements can reduce hospital costs, upgrade the quality of care, and initiate a more cooperative approach to health care delivery, while also serving as a viable alternative to more fundamental reorganization. To get the most from a sharing arrangement, a hospital should avoid being influenced by the mystique surrounding shared services. Any decision to adopt a sharing arrangement should be preceded by careful analysis of the six shared services options and other alternatives.

Group purchasing of food items maintains quality, cuts costs

Hospital food group purchasing programs face problems that other kinds of group purchasing programs don't have. HARICOMP, a not-for-profit hospital shared services corporation, helped a group of Rhode Island hospitals solve some of these problems by using computers. The computers eliminate much of the time-consuming effort involved in making price comparisons, holding sales meetings, and doing paperwork.