Category Archives: Centers of Value
Two-year UW colleges in jeopardy

Sadly, enrollments at the 13 former UW two-year colleges have been in free-fall since their recent merger with seven four-year UW universities. Prior to the consolidations, the associate degree campuses provided nearby education to 9700 students looking to get their … Read the rest
Ala carte medical pricing coming to an end

The very lucrative Medical Industrial Complex (MIC) will fight long and hard against fixed, transparent prices for standard elective procedures. That is especially true in the highly priced, highly consolidated Milwaukee market. Why wouldn’t they? If I were running a … Read the rest
4th wave of reform: two new knees for $39,000

Larry Hillyer, a quality engineer at Serigraph Inc., walked into my office last week to give me a report on his double knee replacement. It was an incredible report. He selected a small regional hospital for its value: excellent service, … Read the rest
Hit the beach for a new hip

GRAND CAYMAN—Want to buy a hip or knee replacement for half price or less? Ditto for a heart bypass? Want to recuperate on one of the best beaches in the world? Well, then, welcome to Health City on Grand Cayman … Read the rest
A new day: clinic competes on quality metrics

It’s a new day when health care providers choose to compete on quality metrics instead of their new edifices and images of smiling nurses on billboards. I ran into a sterling example of competing on value when the Orthopedic & … Read the rest
Companies use broker for value in surgeries

Sending American employees overseas for inexpensive surgeries sounded like a good idea five years ago when BridgeHealth was testing the concept, but there weren’t many takers. So BridgeHealth, a broker for buying surgeries, shifted to medical tourism in the United … Read the rest
Globalization of health care in high gear

As evidence that market forces are moving faster to transform the delivery of health care than government reforms can ever accomplish, consider medical tourism’s latest development: the creation of a $2 billion “health city” in Cayman. Dr. Devi Shetty, an … Read the rest
Apollo tourist hospital busy, needs outcome metrics

BANGALORE — During a recent tour of the famous Apollo Hospital, the first thing that jumps out was that it is a very busy place. There are literally thousands of patients. This hospital delivers a ton of medical care and … Read the rest
Safeway flat lines health costs

To “flat line” is not a good thing in medical terms, but it is an extremely positive and significant outcome when applied to health costs, and that is just what Safeway has done. Since it adopted a holistic and aggressive … Read the rest
Pepsi, Hopkins lead on bundled prices

The march is on for bundled prices in health care, at least in the private sector. Pepsi announced recently that its 250,000 employees will be able to avoid payments if they travel to Baltimore and take advantage of bundled prices … Read the rest