Diets Don't Work - 4 Ways To Lose Weight Naturally and EffectivelyWritten by Mark Idzik
Any doctor worth their salt will tell you diets don't work. Plain and simple. Surprised?Well you might be. You can't get away from all talk about South Beach, Atkins, Low Carb, Zone ... you name it, they're talking about it. It's on TV, in magazines... everywhere you look. And of course there are pills, drugs and other expensive methods to lose weight. While they may be appropriate in certain cases, by and large they aren't necessary. Some can actually be dangerous to your health. What does work, what's been proven to work time and time again is something very simple... a lifestyle change. You may not want to hear it, but it's true. You can't eat thousands of calories, rich desserts, sugary snacks, excess fat and tons of carbs, get little or no activity and expect to lose weight with a pill! You'll be surprised to know that you don't need to stop eating or have to exercise for hours every day to lose weight. Just a few simple lifestyle changes added daily can turn your life around quickly. You will start to lose weight within days and feel better as well. Here are 4 tips you can use to get started today: - Drink water. Drinking lots of water is probably single most important thing you can do for your health. You lose over 2.5 liters of water daily through normal body functions and since it can't be stored efficiently, needs to be replaced daily. Water nourishes your body, it is essential for digestion and flushes toxins out of your system - vital when you're working on losing weight. There is no replacement for water.
| | Feasibility Studies: The Key to Evaluating Expansion OpportunityWritten by By Phillip Laux, MS
Hospitals faced with increasing financial pressures and market competition such as declining reimbursements, fragmented financing systems, lower operating margins, and consumers driving healthcare decisions are responding with innovative business approaches. One of most common initiatives is to expand services, either enhancing existing care areas or venturing into a new service line. State of art facilities for imaging, ambulatory surgery, outpatient diagnostics, cancer treatment, or one of more profitable service lines: cardiac surgery are being designed & built throughout country. Today, more than ever, hospitals must carefully consider impact of all spending and financial return to organization. Taking these issues into consideration, hospital executives attempt to offset unprofitable services such as emergency rooms and inpatient psychiatric care with cancer care and heart surgery where contribution margins continue to be “healthy”. New clinical services can position a hospital to generate new streams of revenue while addressing unmet need. There are many risks involved with implementing new and unfamiliar services. Hospital executives can minimize these risks by making intelligent, data-supported decisions. Answers to following three questions are first steps in planning process. 1. What is market of proposed service? 2. Is proposed service a “right fit”, both organizationally and operationally? 3. Does proposed service project a sound financial picture? Feasibility studies are considered one of more powerful, yet under utilized tools that hospital executives can use to test planning assumptions and substantiate their case for expanding services. A feasibility study can be used to solicit board approval; financing and bond review, and meet CON application requirements. Also, they serve as foundation for final business plan. The typical time commitment to conduct a comprehensive feasibility study ranges from 75-120 days, dependent on availability of financial and market information. Case Study Faced with financial challenges and significant out migration of cardiovascular patient population, administrators at a 150-bed community-based hospital conducted a comprehensive cardiovascular feasibility study. “We kept seeing increased need and unmet demand. Diagnostic catheterizations have been offered here for nearly ten years, but patients had to leave community to access advanced cardiovascular care,” they said. This feasibility study was initiated for four purposes: (1) to determine a course of action: whether or not to enter open heart surgery market (2) CON application support (3) financing and bond issuance testing (4) implementation business plan foundation. Senior management conveyed strategic goals and necessity of feasibility study to key medical staff leaders and a selected project team. Support and direction from senior management was critical to success of project, which would be one of biggest investments in history of organization. A senior executive assembled a project team from core hospital departments to discuss timeline, project scope, and to review information on medical admissions and market need statistics. Information was gathered on appropriate data of market share, financial, capital, procedural volumes, and operational requirements. As mentioned earlier, a feasibility study looks at three major areas: (1) Market (2) Operations (3) Finance. Beginning with market analysis, hospital management and key stakeholders were identified and interviewed to assist in development of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of organization for proposed cardiovascular services expansion. Trends of cardiac specific procedures were gathered at national, regional, and local levels. For example, U.S. hospitals could expect cardiology services to increase 44 percent more than average increase in other services in next 5 years . Additional criteria analyzed in feasibility study included mortality rates, out migration for advanced cardiac care, cardiac transfers to competitors, demographics, and procedure use rate statistics. These factors assisted in defining hospital’s Total Cardiac Target Market™ (TCTM). The TCTM is geographical area from which hospital could expect to draw patients for advanced cardiovascular care. Demand projections incorporating all of mentioned methodologies were developed and reviewed with senior management. Exhibit 1, demand projections for open heart surgeries within TCTM, calculated by applying actual historical open heart surgery utilization rates, specific to TCTM population. Exhibit 1
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