PRESS RELEASE

January 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS MUST SOLVE PROBLEMS OF HIGH COST AND UNEVEN QUALITY BY CHANGING THE WAY THEY DO BUSINESS; NEED TO LOOK BEYOND INSURANCE COVERAGE ISSUES, AUTHORS CONTEND

New book gives a realistic roadmap for reform using proven techniques of economic analysis and performance improvement to shift money currently wasted in health care into producing high-value services that patients and payers are now demanding

NEW YORK (January 28, 2008)...A new book is putting the health care industry's biggest challenges into a fresh and useful perspective. Most hospitals, health systems, and other provider organizations are facing financial peril, the authors contend. Mounting receivables from high-deductible health plans, financially challenged consumers, continuing cuts in Medicare, and a precarious economy suggest that real health care spending has peaked. With operating costs increasing and crucial investments in infrastructure not being made, health care providers must find new ways to survive. Politicians' plans to extend health insurance to all Americans will not solve the growing problems of high cost and uneven quality. So what is the answer for threatened providers?

In their groundbreaking collaboration, award-winning writers Jeffrey C. Bauer, Ph.D., and Mark Hagland explain why providers must draw upon internal resources to increase net revenue and to provide the quality of care that payers and consumers are demanding. Through numerous case studies, the authors show how successful health care organizations are using performance improvement tools to produce top-quality services as inexpensively as possible. Their creative, insightful, and easily readable book describes the steps that leaders must take to get the best possible value for the two trillion dollars already spent on health care in the United States.

Paradox and Imperatives in Health Care

• Shows why hospitals and medical groups must methodically respond to new political and economic realities that will not be kind to "business as usual."
  
• Exposes the abundant waste in health care and illustrates economic concepts for producing top-quality care all the time, as inexpensively as possible.
  
• Explains proven processes for performance improvement and information technologies used in other industries that were forced to change just to stay in business.
  
• Establishes providers' internal transformation as an essential foundation for all other approaches to health reform.
  
• Identifies the seven critical success factors shared by health care delivery organizations that have become efficient and effective.
  
• Highlights leadership's strategic role in organizational responses to the new imperatives of the medical marketplace...how to put their organizations on a positive path while redirection is still possible!

About the Authors

Jeff Bauer, Ph.D., is a partner in management consulting and director of the futures practice for ACS. A nationally recognized medical economist and health futurist, he has published more than 150 articles, books, and videos about key trends in health care, and he speaks regularly to national audiences. In addition to his 17 years as a consultant and industry thought leader, Dr. Bauer has also spent 17 years as a professor at two academic health centers, served as a state governor's health policy advisor.

Mark Hagland is a national award-winning health care journalist who covers a diverse array of industry issues, from health care policy to provider-payer relations, quality, strategic planning, managed care, and information technology topics. He has spent nearly two decades as a health care journalist; from 1990 through early 1996, he was Managing Editor and then Executive Editor of Hospitals & Health Networks magazine. Since 1996, he has been an independent journalist, researcher, and speaker in the field.

About Productivity Press

Launched in July, 2006, Productivity Press' health care product line is a primary source of leading-edge publications, workbooks, tools, and resources that support and educate healthcare professionals and other stakeholders in the drive to improve the overall performance and quality of the healthcare system. Our publications are written by industry thought leaders who offer proven, practical, and thought-provoking information and strategies in subjects ranging from lean methodologies to financial management, medical economics, strategy and leadership, information technology and patient safety and quality. For more information on this or any of Productivity Press' other titles, visit our online catalog at ProductivityPress.com. Productivity Press is a division of The Taylor and Francis Group, http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/.

List price of the book by Jeff Bauer and Mark Hagland is $39.95. Complimentary review copies are available to media contacts by calling Kristine Mednansky at 630-482-9886 or by e-mailing her at kristine.mednansky@taylorandfrancis.com.

For more information on Paradox and Imperatives in Health Care or any of Productivity Press' other titles, call 1 (888) 319-5852, or access our online catalog at ProductivityPress.com.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR

Paradox and Imperatives in Health Care: How Efficiency, Effectiveness, and E-Transformation Can Conquer Waste and Optimize Quality

By Jeffrey C. Bauer, Ph.D. and Mark Hagland

"This book has just the right combination of empirical research, rigorous methods, and analytical thinking, presented via lucid writing and message clarity that businesspeople want and need. Most importantly, it provides real-world solutions to control costs and improve quality, recognizing, as the authors wisely write, that 'Third parties [including employers] are no longer able or willing to subsidize waste in health care.' Time is running out for change."

--Helen Darling
President
National Business Group on Health
Washington, DC

"Paradox and Imperatives in Health Care does a masterful job of discussing practical approaches to achieving material gains in health care provider effectiveness and efficiency through e-health technologies and disciplined process change. A superb book."

--John Glaser, PhD
Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Partners HealthCare
Boston, MA

"Balancing cost and quality with transparency is a complex challenge for our nation's hospitals. Dr. Bauer and Mr. Hagland offer insights as to how we can truly make this a win-win-win situation by transforming healthcare together, giving Americans what they truly deserve-the most effective, efficient and caring healthcare system in the world."

--Richard A. Norling
President and CEO
Premier Inc

"Wow! Providers Heal Thyselves...supported by clearly communicated economic theory; real examples from all types of providers; just enough improvement process information to intrigue and direct further investigation; key success factors; and then, the punch line, a message for purchasers, payers and patients; and, a prescription and challenge for policy change. As provider, patient and citizen I say Thanks!!!"

--Lois Huminiak, BSN,MS,CPHQ
Clinical Quality Coordinator
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Chicago, IL

"Paradox and Imperatives in Health Care challenges health care purchasers to recognize that paying less is not the answer - rather it is getting more for the money. Even more importantly, this book challenges leaders of America's hospitals and delivery systems to step up to the challenge of providing truly high quality care - it does this by telling real world stories of leading institutions across the country who are reengineering care to truly meet patients needs. This is an important and exciting book."

--Peter V. Lee
Chief Executive Officer
Pacific Business Group on Health
San Francisco, CA

"A persuasive and straight-forward overview of the core issues facing heath care - quality and efficiency. Presents quantifiable and technology-enabled advancements from leading health care organizations...written to motivate leaders to higher levels of performance improvement."

--Timothy R. Zoph
Vice President and CIO
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Chicago, IL

"Jeff Bauer and Mark Hagland hit on a central theme that should be priority #1 in every hospital boardroom and c-suite in America - improved quality. Their discussion is unique and important because it applies proven economic principles to strategic plans and tactical actions that are often overlooked or unappreciated."

--Al W. Gatmaitan, FACHE
President & CEO
Clarian West Medical Center
Avon, IN