Quality: the new healthcare imperative.

Increasing evidence shows that besides saving lives, quality initiatives can increase volume and market share, shorten hospital stays, and result in fewer complications and readmissions. A look at the American Heart Association's Get With The Guidelines program shows how evidence-based therapies have improved quality and patient outcomes.

Straight talk new approaches in healthcare. The outpatient market: protect important market share.

Hospitals are facing competition from myriad freestanding players in the outpatient market. It's a fight hospitals can't afford to lose because they often use outpatient profits to cover losses in other service lines. Indeed about 60% of the average hospital's operating margin depends on outpatient revenues.

Straight talk. New approaches in healthcare. Hospital/physician partnerships are key to growth of market share.

Unlabelled: Do you know who your biggest competitor is? It's probably your most loyal physician group. That's because up to 80% of hospitals are competing with their own medical staffs, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers' research. Physicians are launching revenue enhancement and diversification strategies to combat declining reimbursement and respond to the surge in demand for outpatient services.