Evaluation of Cost, Payments, Healthcare Utilization, and Perioperative and Post-Operative Outcomes of Patients Treated with Posterior Lumbar Spinal Surgery Using Open versus Minimally Invasive Surgical Approaches.

Purpose: Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) of the spine has been associated with favorable outcomes compared to open surgery. This study evaluated matched cohorts treated with MIS versus open posterior lumbar fusion for costs, payments, healthcare utilization and outcomes.

Patients And Methods: This study used the Premier Healthcare and IBM MarketScan Commercial and Medicare Databases.

Implementing a perioperative efficiency initiative for orthopedic surgery instrumentation at an academic center: A comparative before-and-after study.

Optimizing surgical instrumentation may contribute to value-based care, particularly in commonly performed procedures. We report our experience in implementing a perioperative efficiency program in 2 types of orthopedic surgery (primary total-knee arthroplasty, TKA, and total-hip arthroplasty, THA).A comparative before-and-after study with 2 participating surgeons, each performing both THA and TKA, was conducted.

The role of the physician in transforming the culture of healthcare.

Purpose The healthcare system in the USA is undergoing unprecedented change and its share of unintended consequences. This paper explores the leadership role of the physician in transforming the present culture of healthcare to restore, refine and preserve its traditional care components. Design/methodology/approach The literature on change, organizational culture and leadership is leveraged to describe the structural interdependencies and dynamic complexity of the present healthcare system and to suggest how physicians can strengthen the care components of the healthcare culture.

Managing in the context of healthcare's escalating technology and evolving culture.

Purpose: As healthcare has become more scientifically based and far more sophisticated in terms of technology, it has become more fragmented in terms of care-giving, and less personal. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the challenging task of leading and managing in the gap between the existing and emerging cultures of healthcare.

Design/methodology/approach: This paper considers the literature on culture, how it exists at many levels and in multiple forms, and the impacts it has on the US healthcare system.