What does free cash flow tell us about hospital efficiency? A stochastic frontier analysis of cost inefficiency in California hospitals.

Hospitals are facing substantial financial and economic pressure as a result of health plan payment restructuring, unfunded mandates, and other factors. This article analyzes the relationship between free cash flow (FCF) and hospital efficiency given these financial challenges. Data from 270 California hospitals were used to estimate a stochastic frontier model of hospital cost efficiency that explicitly takes into account outpatient heterogeneity.

Physician career satisfaction: examining perspectives of the working environment.

The author examined the relationship among factors influencing the career satisfaction of 2,105 physicians. Data from the 2005 Community Tracking Study Physician Survey were used to obtain 5 latent factors. Structural equation modeling was then applied to extract information on factor interrelationships with physician satisfaction.

Which physicians have access to electronic prescribing and which ones end up using it?

Objectives: This study examines the availability of electronic prescription and the utilization of e-prescribing by physicians in the US.

Methods: Nationally representative data from the 2004-2005 Community Tracking Study Physician Survey were used to identify which subgroups of physicians have access to e-prescribing technology and which subgroups are using this technology more or less intensively. Exhaustive Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) was employed for statistical data segmentation.

Keeping hospitals healthy: focus centers translate into greater net revenue.

The author explored the relation between focus centers in multihospital systems and net revenue. Research included related topics such as the multihospital system as a response to regulatory banning of specialty hospitals and the relations between the number of focus centers, median income, bed size, morbidity rates, net revenue, and patient days. To conduct the analysis, the author examined 20 randomly selected multihospital systems.

Accurate femur repositioning is critical during intraoperative total hip arthroplasty length and offset assessment.

Techniques for intraoperative leg length equalization are based on measurements between fixed points on the pelvis and femur. These techniques have not been reliable because they are based on accurate femur repositioning. We examined the error that results from inaccurate femur repositioning during total hip arthroplasty.