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8 common printer cyber-hardening mistakes that could endanger your network.

Securing the Forgotten Servers: Why Printers Are the Biggest Security Risk Today

By 2050, it's estimated that 139 million people worldwide will have dementia, but by today's standards, 60% will be undiagnosed. It's clear that there's a significant gap in dementia detection and care, but what can your organization do about it?

Get perspectives from clinical leaders and neuroscience experts about the underlying causes and consequences of these gaps, practical opportunities to address them, and a proven roadmap that shows how leading health systems have successfully transformed their dementia screening and care processes.

Closing the Dementia Care Gap: Expert Insights and Proven Strategies for Health Systems

Health systems and hospitals rely on temporary staffing to provide continuity of care.

In this video, three healthcare leaders engage in a fascinating conversation about locum tenens, managing resources, ensuring financial returns, and the clinicians looking at temporary staffing roles..

Thomas Lanvers, senior vice president of Locumsmart, moderated the discussion with Ryan Schwanke, chief medical officer of Billings Clinic, and Roy Milwee, chief ambulatory officer of Appalachian Regional Healthcare.

Check out the full conversation for important insights. This is one of a series of videos on expanding healthcare access. 

Thomas Lanvers of Locumsmart moderates a discussion on locum tenens

A Locumsmart panel discussion on temporary staffing

Thomas Lanvers of Locumsmart leads a video discussion on trends in temporary staffing, financial returns, and the clinicians interested in short-term roles.



Locum Tenens and ensuring continuity of care

Health systems face growing financial pressures, including staffing.

In this video, a panel of healthcare leaders talk about improving staffing affordability and emerging trends in workforce planning.

Thomas Lanvers, senior vice president of Locumsmart, leads a lively discussion featuring Ryan Schwanke, chief medical officer of Billings Clinic, and Roy Milwee, chief ambulatory officer of Appalachian Regional Healthcare.

Check out the full conversation in the video.

Thomas Lanvers of Locumsmart talks with healthcare leaders about staffing challenges

A panel discussion on staffing affordability and planning

The panel also talked about a wide array of healthcare staffing and resources challenges in this series of videos. Get more insights in these discussions.

Telehealth, improving access, and overcoming barriers

Locum tenens and ensuring continuity of care

Establishing float pools: Keys to success

Preventing staffing shortages with data-driven strategies

Thomas Lanvers of Locumsmart talks with healthcare leaders about staffing strategies and dealing with future trends.

Improving staffing affordability and workforce planning

Healthcare organizations face the challenges of staffing shortages, but they can help themselves by employing data-driven strategies.

In this video, three healthcare leaders talk about how health systems can be using data to help address staffing needs, improve efficiency and engage in better long-term workforce planning.

Thomas Lanvers, senior vice president of Locumsmart, moderated a conversation featuring Ryan Schwanke, chief medical officer of Billings Clinic, and Roy Milwee, chief ambulatory officer of Appalachian Regional Healthcare.

Check out the full conversation and some valuable insights in the video.

Thomas Lanvers of Locumsmart moderates a conversation about data-driven strategies to meet staffing needs

Using data to prevent hospital staffing shortages 

Thomas Lanvers of Locumsmart moderates a conversation about the ways healthcare organizations can use data to improve efficiency and long-term workforce planning.


Noah Wyle won his first Emmy for his starring role in “The Pitt,” the acclaimed series set in a Pittsburgh hospital’s emergency department.

But months before, he captured the hearts of employees at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. While most of the show is filmed in Los Angeles, 

some scenes were shot at the Pittsburgh hospital

During a press tour to promote the show, Wyle visited Allegheny General and spent hours talking to staff and taking pictures. Dan Laurent, senior vice president of corporate communications at Highmark Health, the hospital’s parent organization, says Wyle warmly interacted with staff.

“Noah Wyle has been amazing, and the producers have been amazing,” Laurent told Chief Healthcare Executive® in a recent interview.

(See part of our conversation in this video. The story continues below.)

Dan Laurent of Highmark Health talks about Noah Wyle and working with The Pitt

Noah Wyle of The Pitt wins fans in Pittsburgh hospital

When Wyle visited the hospital, he met with many of the staff.

“He came down, and he spent several hours at the hospital getting his photograph with every single person who wanted their photograph with him,” Laurent recalled. “Just so, so gracious. And as you can imagine, the staff love him. And it was really fun. So he spent time in the emergency department and then other parts of the hospital that he wanted to visit.”

Wyle comes across as “a genuine, good guy,” Laurent said.

“When we found out we had the opportunity to have him actually come into the hospital and meet with people, the team of the staff, the ER staff, was through the moon,” he said.

The producers of The Pitt held a screening of the first episode at Allegheny General. Wyle and the producers were in Los Angeles putting the finishing touches on other episodes of the show’s first season. But Wyle and others appeared via Zoom before the hospital on the screening day.

Wyle “zoomed in from his home and took questions from the audience,” Laurent said.

The show has received widespread praise for showing an accurate portrayal of the emergency department, 

Wyle and the show’s actors and producers were meticulous in their work, Laurent says. “You hear a lot about Noah Wyle, you know, he's amazing, and you watch him, it's almost like you feel like he could be providing care at one of your ERs, because … you would never know that he's not an actual doctor. And that goes for a lot of the other folks on the program as well. They have really nailed the casting of this program.”

The Pitt captured the Emmy for best drama series, and Katherine LaNasa won for best supporting actress in a drama. The show captured five Emmy awards.

During his acceptance speech Sunday night, Wyle said, “If anybody is going on shift tonight or coming off shift tonight, thank you for being in that job. This is for you.”

 shooting scenes for the upcoming season. The second season of The Pitt is slated to debut on HBO Max in January.

How ‘The Pitt’ delivers a realistic view of a hospital

The star of The Pitt, Wyle captured the Emmy for lead actor in a drama. He earned the admiration of the staff at the Steel City facility where some scenes were shot. 


Topic

Before the Emmys, Noah Wyle won the hearts of a Pittsburgh hospital

More than 1 million tests and procedures that Medicare patients received in hospitals over a three-year period were likely not needed, according to an analysis released today.

The Lown Institute, named for Bernard Lown, MD, a Nobel Laureate who died earlier this year at age 99, released its 

 that measures how well they do in avoiding low-value care, based on established criteria for overuse.

Most of the top performing hospitals in the Lown Institute Hospital Index are not from large, well-known health systems that appear on the annual rankings of U.S. News and World Report—in fact, only Cleveland Clinic, which ranked 58th on the Lown list, is on the U.S. News honor roll, according to the a statement on findings.

But there were some patterns: of the 50 top performers, nine are in the Northeast and 10 were in the Pacific Northwest. By contrast, the South is home to highest number of poor performers—41 out of 50—and five of the 10 worst performers are found in Florida. The Lown Institute noted that 47% of Florida’s hospitals are for-profit enterprises.

The 2021 Lown Institute Hospital Index measured overuse at 3,100 hospitals from 2016-2018, using data from 100% of Medicare claims between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2018. The analysis focuses on 12 low-value services, including four tests and eight procedures, with the index giving added weight to services that account for higher shares of overuse.

 at the University of Michigan, low-value care includes services “that provide little or no benefit to patients, have potential to cause harm, incur necessary costs to patients, and waste limited healthcare resources.” The Center estimates that low-value care costs the country more than $345 billion a year, and notes that there have been several initiatives to squeeze low-value care from the system.

“Overuse in American hospitals is a pervasive problem that needs to be addressed,” said Vikas Saini, MD, president of the Lown Institute. “Hospitals want to do better and these objective measures of performance can help them move forward.”

Services measured in the Lown Index are: 

 when patients have not had a meniscal tear; 

, which maps plaque buildup, if done on female patients who have no stroke symptoms or history; 

when performed on patients with stable heart disease; 

electroencephalography (EEG) for fainting

 if patients have not had epilepsy or seizures; 

 if patients have not had pulmonary embolism; 

 for patients without a diagnosis of fibromuscular dysplasia of the renal artery; 

The top 10 high-performing hospitals are as follows:

Scott County Hospital in Scott City, Kansas

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts

West River Regional Medical Center in Hettinger, North Dakota

Mayo Clinic Health System in Lake City, Minnesota

Sidney Regional Medical Center in Sidney, Nebraska

Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital in Lebanon, New Hampshire

Healdsburg District Hospital in Healdsburg, California

Contra Costa Regional Medical Center in Martinez, California

CMS has tried to target low-value care in recent years through the use of alternative payment models (APMs), and efforts to eliminate wasteful hip- and knee replacements have been deemed largely successful. Other hospital safety organizations have zeroed in on unnecessary hysterectomies, which the 2021 Lown analysis found were unnecessary in 64% of the cases. In North Dakota and Wyoming, hysterectomy overuse was 90% and 94%, respectively.

The analysis also ranked states based on the overall record of its hospitals and found that Vermont did the best job of avoiding unnecessary procedures, while Alabama fared the worst.

The analysis by the Lown Institute measures hospitals based on their performance of 12 services performed over a three-year period.

Jim LaRoe, CEO, Symphion, Inc.

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