Each year, about 700,000 new or recurrent strokes occur in the United States, killing about 150,000 people. That’s one stroke every 45 seconds, and one stroke death every three to four minutes. About 15 percent of strokes occur within 90 days of a transient ischemic attack (TIA)—a warning sign of impending stroke. And the incidence of [...]
Two clinical improvement initiatives from St. Luke’s were recognized by Qualis Health, the well-known care management organization that oversees quality for the Medicare program in our region, at the state-wide Quality and Patient Safety Conference held in Boise on April 5. These two projects were selected from numerous submissions and were among four chosen for [...]
Since 1995, the first full week in April has been National Public Health Week, providing the American Public Health Association and other organizations the opportunity to bring attention to health improvement. I recently met with Elke Shaw-Tulloch, administrator for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare’s Division of Public Health. We discussed the fact that [...]
At our annual St. Luke’s Health System Summit in February, we were honored to have Gary S. Kaplan, M.D., chairman and CEO of Virginia Mason Health System in the Seattle area, provide a keynote address regarding the Virginia Mason Production System (VMPS). Read St. Luke’s Health System Vice President of Performance Excellence Mike Reno’s report [...]
Project Zero is an example of St. Luke’s Triple Aim in action. Its success is contributing to better care and lower costs. We have many such examples of innovative efforts led by physicians – in this particular case, by Drs. Kevin Shea and Howard King – that we are profiling on the blog. Having [...]
The reason that I am so optimistic that St. Luke’s can transform health care is that our physicians and our employees are leading the transformation. I have the chance here to feature the work of our physician leaders, and I will continue to share stories of improvements they are leading. In today’s post, I’m [...]
While picking up a prescription recently, I had the opportunity to tour our St. Luke’s Boise pharmacy and talk to staff members who, I was delighted to discover, are incorporating our vision and strategy every day in all they do. I visited with Pharmacy Operations Manager Mike Griffiths and was so impressed with his clarity [...]
I am writing with an update on the investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Idaho Attorney General’s Office. We learned late yesterday that the FTC and the AG have decided to file a complaint in federal court against St. Luke’s. This action is related to the lawsuit filed by Saint Alphonsus and [...]
Editor’s note: My article that follows originally appeared as a column in the Idaho Statesman’s Business Insider last month. The problems with the American health care system include fragmentation (care is delivered in many settings by many providers with little coordination) and misaligned incentives (payment methodologies do not create incentives for the results we say [...]
