Evaluating and marketing efficient physicians toward competitive advantage.
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Data Interpretation, Statistical↗
Biomedical subjects
H D Sherman
Publications and source records attributed to H D Sherman.
Managing physician efficiency and effectiveness in providing hospital services.
Physicians control more than 80 percent of the decisions affecting health costs. Consequently, managing physician practice patterns is an important avenue to reducing health care costs. One approach to identifying inefficient practice patterns is demonstrated in this pilot study of physicians treating heart shock patients. Physicians are evaluated using data envelopment analysis (DEA), a relatively new linear-program-based efficiency evaluation tool. This approach (1) locates physicians using excess resources in treating patients, (2) estimates the amount of excess resources used, and (3) explicitly considers the quality of patient care in the overall assessment of the physician's practice patterns. Findings of physician inefficiency that are stable over time could be used to alter practice patterns and subsequently to assist in cost containment.
Data Collection↗
Hospital efficiency measurement and evaluation. Empirical test of a new technique.
A new technique for identifying inefficient hospitals, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), is field tested by application to a group of teaching hospitals. DEA is found to provide meaningful insights into the location and nature of hospital inefficiencies as judged by the opinion of a panel of hospital experts. DEA provides insights about hospital efficiency not available from the widely used efficiency evaluation techniques of ratio analysis and econometric-regression analysis. DEA is, therefore, suggested as a means to help identify and measure hospital inefficiency as a basis for directing management efforts toward increasing efficiency and reducing health care costs.
Aged↗
Improving the productivity of service businesses.
Service organizations account for over 60 percent of the GNP, yet management tools are less developed for this sector than for the manufacturing sector. This article describes a new approach to help evaluate and improve the productivity of many types of service organizations, identifies inefficiencies and ways to improve productivity, and provides examples of applications to hospitals and bank branches. These insights are not available from commonly used performance measures. The article presents procedures required to use this technique and discusses ways managers can assess its potential costs and benefits.
Costs and Cost Analysis↗
Advantages of fund accounting in 'nonprofits'.
Motivated by the financial difficulties that have beset city governments and some private nonprofit organizations, the accounting profession and other circles are urging these organizations to conform to business accounting practices. (See Robert N. Anthony's article on p. 83 of this issue.) Fund accounting, these reformers claim, is too complex, too segmented to permit intelligent analysis. The authors of this article demur; not only is it legally and logically necessary to maintain separately the restricted and unrestricted monies received from various sources and spent for designated purposes; also close examination of the financial statements of nonprofit enterprises can provide a very good idea of how well they are doing financially. Furthermore, the authors advocate adoption of certain fund accounting principles for businesses, and they show why they could be helpful. This article is much more than a defense of how nonprofit organizations account for their operations; it is a comprehensive but brief introduction to the subject.
Accounting↗
Tread lightly through these accounting minefields.
In the current economic climate, there is tremendous pressure--and personal incentive for managers--to report sales growth and meet investors' revenue expectations. As a result, more companies have been issuing misleading financial reports, according to the SEC, especially involving game playing around earnings. But it's shareholders who suffer from aggressive accounting strategies; they don't get a true sense of the financial health of the company, and when problems come to light, the shares they're holding can plummet in value. How can investors and their representatives on corporate boards spot trouble before it blows up in their faces? According to the authors, they should keep their eyes peeled for common abuses in six areas: revenue measurement and recognition, provisions and reserves for uncertain future costs, asset valuation, derivatives, related party transactions, and information used for bench-marking performance. If a disaster strikes, it will most likely be in one of these accounting minefields. This article examines the hazards of each minefield in turn, using examples like Metallgesellschaft, Xerox, MicroStrategy, and Lernout & Hauspie. It also provides a set of questions to ask in order to determine where a company's accounting practices might be overly aggressive. For those whose greatest interest is in fairly valuing the business--not presenting it in the best possible light--these questions are the first line of defense against creative accounting. Accounting game players are adroit, but it's both foolish and dangerous, contend the authors, to declare oneself ignorant and hence powerless against their machinations. They argue that members of corporate boards need to be financially literate.
Accounting↗