Patient-focused care pays hospital-wide dividends. Interview by Donald E. L. Johnson

By decentralizing ancillary services, streamlining processes and cross training professional and paraprofessional employees, hospitals can improve patient satisfaction and staff efficiency, says David L. Bernd, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Sentara Health Systems, Norfolk, Virginia, in the following interview with Donald E. L. Johnson, editor and publisher of Health Care Strategic Management. But hospitals should not convert to patient-focused care primarily to cut costs, he warned. Cost savings could result, but only on a hospital-wide basis, as a result of new efficiencies and reduced lengths-of-stay. At the unit level, costs are likely to go up as ancillary services are moved to patient-focused units and more resources are devoted directly at each patient.