ABSTRACT
When Healthcare Executive asked managed care organization CEOs and board chairs to identify governance challenges, they found the question so easy that it was difficult to limit their responses. while all the healthcare leaders interviewed pointed to the need to--and challenge of--staying ahead of the changes affecting the healthcare field, many identified challenges that were more specific to their organizations, markets, or patient population. Some also pointed out that while their challenges may be shared by hospitals and other provider organizations, there were aspects of each that were particularly relevant to managed care organizations, which often offer a variety of products in a number of different of markets.
Subject(s)
Governing Board , Health Facility Administrators , Managed Care Programs/organization & administration , Community-Institutional Relations , Leadership , Managed Care Programs/economics , Managed Care Programs/legislation & jurisprudence , Marketing of Health Services , Program Development , United StatesABSTRACT
Many hospital admissions scheduling or admissions control systems reported in the literature rely on estimates of future discharges to help control the variance in daily patient census. One of the two most frequently reported methods of estimating discharges attempts to explain the variance in historical length of stay (LPS) data. This paper explores the relationship between LOS variance explanation and the ability to predict discharges and concludes that even a large improvement in the ability to explain LOS variance will only marginally reduce the errors in the associated discharge predictions. In drawing this conclusion, a general discharge prediction model is developed and a more relevant statistic than per cent variance explained is introduced.
