operational

The annual Truven Health 100 Top Hospitals® identifies U.S. hospitals with the best overall performance across multiple organizational metrics, including clinical, operational, and financial. The ability of some hospitals to adapt as the industry is changing demonstrates leadership as the winners set the standards their peers seek to achieve. Study projections indicate that if the new national benchmarks of high performance were achieved by all hospitals in the United States, nearly 126,500 additional lives could be saved, almost 109,000 additional patients could be complication-free, and $1.8 billion in inpatient costs could be saved.

The median fiscal and operational performance of U.S. hospitals over the past year remained relatively flat, despite expectations to the contrary. The data spans a four-year period from 2009Q4 to 2013Q4. Overall, hospitals saw flat or no growth in utilization, but major teaching hospitals saw steady utilization growth.

The Truven Health 15 Top Health Systems study annually identifies those health system leadership teams that have most effectively aligned outstanding performance across their organizations, and achieved more reliable outcomes in every member hospital. Truven Health Analytics measures U.S. health systems based on a balanced scorecard across a range of performance factors: care quality, patient safety, use of evidence-based medicine, operational efficiency, and customer perception of care.

The annual Truven Health AnalyticsTM 100 Top Hospitals® identifies U.S. hospitals with the best overall performance across multiple organizational metrics, including clinical, operational, and financial. The ability of some hospitals to adapt as the industry is changing demonstrates leadership as the winners set the standards their peers seek to achieve. The study revealed that the nation’s best hospitals had a lower mortality index, considering patient severity; had fewer patient complications; followed accepted care protocols; had lower 30-day mortality and 30-day readmission rates; sent patients home sooner; provided more timely emergency care; kept expenses low, both in-hospital and through the aftercare process; and scored better on patient surveys of hospital experience

The shift from inpatient to outpatient care is increasing as hospitals transition from volume to value. A specific shift is seen in interventional cardiology treatment (cardiac catheterization, intracoronary stents, and percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasties [PTCA]), which is moving from an inpatient hospital to outpatient hospital setting. Preliminary data show that most interventional cardiology procedures will soon be performed in the hospital outpatient setting. It will be important for hospitals to consider future demand and volume for interventional cardiology services; capacity for an increase in hospital outpatient volume; and staffing and operational implications.

The changing healthcare environment has put pressure on healthcare organizations to deliver top-quality care while keeping costs under control. Superior operational and financial performance can be measured by high margins and low costs. But there are significant operational indicators that differ between high- and low-performing hospitals, depending on whether performance is defined by expense or by margin. Often, hospitals with the lowest costs are considered the most successful. But low-cost hospitals do not necessarily behave the same way as hospitals with healthy margins. Low-cost hospitals can include both efficient hospitals and hospitals that are in dire financial circumstances that have forced them to even eliminate expenses necessary for their long-term fiscal health.

A decade ago, hospital leaders viewed cost containment as a distant option to that of building topline revenue through increased volumes and rates. But with the road to profitability choked off by a recession, the ACA, and double-digit increases in healthcare inflation, most have been left pursuing a flurry of initiatives to cut operational costs and maintain positive margins.

IT Transformation is a concept that resonates with companies even more now than it did 12 months ago. It sounds synonymous with digital transformation, but in actuality, IT Transformation is the set of enabling technologies, processes, and focus areas that make effective digital transformation possible. A company that transforms its IT infrastructure no longer has to rely on rigid, manual, siloed, legacy technologies. It sees a boost in IT operational speed, efficiency, scale, and cost effectiveness—tasks are automated, processes streamlined, and resources are freed up. Those IT-level improvements fuel a larger-scale digital transformation, allowing the company to thrive in today’s digital economy. It is able to out-innovate, out-think, and out-pace its competitors—ultimately becoming the disruptor, not the disrupted.

Download this whitepaper for 4 reasons shorter server resfresh cycles are better for business. Analyst firm IDC reports that organizations can increase agility, improve efficiency and reduce operational costs by refreshing their servers every three years.

IDC’s research has shown the movement of most IT workloads to the cloud in the coming years. Yet, with all the talk about enterprises moving to the cloud, some of them still wonder if such a move is really cost effective and what business benefits may result. While the answers to such questions vary from workload to workload, one area attracting particular attention is that of the data warehouse. Many enterprises have substantial investments in data warehousing, with an ongoing cost to managing that resource in terms of software licensing, maintenance fees, operational costs, and hardware. Can it make sense to move to a cloud-based alternative? What are the costs and benefits? How soon can such a move pay itself off? Download now to find out more.

At the most fundamental level an organization only does two things: operations and changes to operations. Regardless of the industry an organization is part of, or whether it is private or public sector, large or small, there is a constant drive to protect and improve operational aspects. Whether it is launching a new product or service, decreasing costs, protecting infrastructure from failure or preventing regulatory noncompliance, there are numerous areas where an organization wants to change something about how it operates. That’s where projects come in. In this whitepaper we look at what causes projects to fail so regularly and offer a sustainable approach for improving performance consistently.

In the digital era, businesses in every industry are becoming technology companies. New business models such as “product as a service” (in which traditional manufacturers and distributors are driving new revenue streams by integrating software-based services into their offerings) and new operational models, such as collaboration, social business, and mobile platforms, mean that nearly every company is deriving at least part of its revenue from cloudbased solutions. So, why are so many of these new cloud solution providers building their businesses on shaky foundations? The truth is, when your business is based in the cloud, you need more than on-demand leased compute and storage capacity. You need a cloud that is enterprise-grade, secure, and resilient. Equally important—and overlooked by too many cloud solution providers—you need a cloud platform that is able to grow your business into the future, supporting next-generation functionality like Artificial Intelligence (AI). No matter wh

While everyone is scrambling to make sure their income statements reflect a profitable year by squeezing procurement costs, it’s actually the balance sheet that tells the full story of long term financial health.

Connecting and protecting organizations as their people disperse to more locations and need access to resources inside and outside the enterprise are driving a renewed focus on operational efficiency and security efficacy. While the fundamental concerns of confidentiality, integrity, and accessibility are unchanged, the cost and potential losses to organizations continue to increase, making the role of C-level infrastructure and security executives more complex than ever before. A recent IDC survey of CISOs ranked the following as the top 5 scenarios keeping them up at night: • Breach disclosure on the front page of WSJ and so forth • Leak of 50% of employee HR records • IT systems to be a source of major attack against partner • Target-style breach • Leak of 10% of PHI/PII customer records

Start the journey to operational and digital excellence by gaining a clear strategy for the first steps forward. This resource includes: • An executive summary of Smart Manufacturing • Benchmarking manufacturing operations management • The road to MOM 4.0 • Digital transformation is a vehicle, not a destination • Recommendations to achieve digital excellence Manufacturers need to start now and follow a clear path from corporate strategic objectives through to successful program implementation.

Today’s enterprises continue to differentiate themselves via their cloud applications. But differentiation is getting harder and harder to accomplish. To stand out, you need a flexible, nimble, scalable, always-on data platform that can deliver powerful, game-changing, customer-facing applications. Read this white paper to learn how DataStax Enterprise delivers comprehensive data management through a secure, operationally simple platform built on the best distribution of Apache Cassandra™.

In this eBook, we’ll take a look at why DataStax and Azure combine to make the ideal hybrid operational cloud database for the modern application needs of many of our large enterprise customers. The eBook explains how digital disruptors like Microsoft, Komatsu, and IHS Markit are leveraging the DSE+Azure hybrid cloud database to build game-changing applications built for the Right-Now Economy.

Today’s enterprises continue to differentiate themselves via their cloud applications. But differentiation is getting harder and harder to accomplish. To stand out, you need a flexible, nimble, scalable, always-on data platform that can deliver powerful, game-changing, customer-facing applications. Read this white paper to learn how DataStax Enterprise delivers comprehensive data management through a secure, operationally simple platform built on the best distribution of Apache Cassandra™.

In this eBook, we’ll take a look at why DataStax and Azure combine to make the ideal hybrid operational cloud database for the modern application needs of many of our large enterprise customers. The eBook explains how digital disruptors like Microsoft, Komatsu, and IHS Markit are leveraging the DSE+Azure hybrid cloud database to build game-changing applications built for the Right-Now Economy.

"What would you do if you didn’t have to rely on disparate analytics solutions to meet the needs of business users while following the rules of IT? View this 'Charting Your Analytical Future' webinar to learn about a world of innovation and independence for users that does not limit the confidence and controls of IT. With the cognitive-guided self-service features available in IBM business analytics solutions, more users than ever before can get the answers they need. Next-generation business analytics capabilities make it possible to access relevant data, prepare it for analysis and understand performance. But it doesn’t stop there. Users can package the results in a visually-appealing format and share them throughout the organization. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear how you can: * Benefit from advanced analytics without the complexity * Operationalize insights and dashboards from a collection of trusted data sources * Tell your story with rich visualizations and geospati

Far from being a soft issue, trust underpins the management of your digital business and digital ecosystems. This report highlights how trust is fundamental to your digital transformation. It focuses on the role of trust in the B2B context and analyzes the key technologies, processes, and operational values that CIOs and their teams must use to build and maintain trusted ecosystem partnerships

After several years of relentless hardware and software innovation, the mainframe is at an inflection point from being a supporting platform of transaction revenue to becoming a source of revenue growth and innovation. Organizations are evolving toward what IDC calls the “connected mainframe.” The platform is transforming from a revenue-supporting machine into a revenue-generating machine and is increasingly playing a central role in organizations’ digital transformation (DX) journey. Key steps in achieving the connected mainframe require organizations to modernize and integrate the platform with their internal and external environments. IDC finds that these modernization and integration initiatives lead to new business innovations, which in turn are driving revenue growth and improving organizational operational efficiency.

Digital transformation is not a buzzword. IT has moved from the back office to the front office in nearly every aspect of business operations, driven by what IDC calls the 3rd Platform of compute with mobile, social business, cloud, and big data analytics as the pillars. In this new environment, business leaders are facing the challenge of lifting their organization to new levels of competitive capability, that of digital transformation — leveraging digital technologies together with organizational, operational, and business model innovation to develop new growth strategies. One such challenge is helping the business efficiently reap value from big data and avoid being taken out by a competitor or disruptor that figures out new opportunities from big data analytics before the business does. From an IT perspective, there is a fairly straightforward sequence of applications that businesses can adopt over time that will help put direction into this journey. IDC outlines this sequence to e

IBM Planning Analytics Local is the on-premises version of the planning solution built on the powerful, in-memory OLAP engine of IBM TM1. It automates your planning, budgeting and forecasting, and helps you link operational tactics with financial plans.

IBM Planning Analytics, powered by IBM TM1, is the fast, flexible, planning solution that helps you align financial plans with corporate objectives linked to operational tactics and market events. In this quick, 10- minute guided demo, you’ll get hands-on experience with IBM Planning Analytics by building a revenue plan. You’ll play the role of a financial planner and learn how to: • Create a revenue plan in IBM Planning Analytics Workspace • Adjust the plan by increasing sales by 20% through an online channel • Review the impact of your changes on net profit