Today, I talk about six books which I have read in the past 8-12 months, so you can decide which ones you’d like to read, and which ones you want to skip.

Under FFS, discharging from the hospital into various SNFs and LTC assisted living, sub-acute or long-term acute facilities became increasingly commonplace. Under FFS, it is financially advantageous for various healthcare stakeholders to shuttle patients between facilities. But Value-based payments puts the Kibosh on revenue coming from this post-discharge care. Dr. Josh Luke provides some keen insight here on why this post discharge paradigm snapped into place and gives advice to hospital executives on how to discharge with dignity.

Today I speak with David Westfall Bates, MD from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Boston). He’s working on a cluster of initiatives he categorizes as “Innovating to reduce cost.”

First we discuss inexorable trends – transformations where the train has left the station and it’s not turning back. Then David offers up three strategic considerations to take action on right now.

Every care setting wrestles with their ~20% of patients who will do what they do, or not do what they are not doing, for reasons beyond a need for some educational resources. And that 20% who are not adherent could be the difference between achieving value-based goals and not achieving value-based goals. The reasons behind why someone does or doesn’t do something are tough to figure out and tougher to address. Today I speak with Melissa McCool from StelliCare about an in-clinic stepwise approach to move patients closer to treatment adherence.