Cleveland Clinic Finds Inventive Ways To Cut Costs

The Cleveland Clinic, long considered a premier medical system, is gaining new renown for innovation in improving the quality of care while holding down costs.

In its most fundamental reform, the clinic in the past five years has created 18 “institutes” that use multidisciplinary teams to treat diseases or problems involving a particular organ system, say the heart or the brain, instead of having patients bounce from one specialist to another on their own.

The Neurological Institute, for example, provides both inpatient or outpatient care for those with strokes and brain tumors, as well as those with epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, depression and sleep disorders, among other conditions.

On a recent visit, we observed one such team, consisting of a neurosurgeon, a neurologist, a neuroradiologist, a neurologist with advanced training in intensive care, a physical and rehabilitation doctor, a medical resident, a physical therapist and a nurse. As they made rounds from patient to patient, they had a portable computer that displayed electronic medical records so that the whole team could see how the patient was doing and plan the course of care for the day.

Read more at THE NEW YORK TIMES

{Matzav.com Newscenter}