Successful strategies for effective management of hospital utilization

Providing high-quality, cost-effective medical care is the challenge facing all managers of health care, physicians and administrators alike. Meeting this challenge will help determine the financial success of any health care delivery system. Innovative programming to successfully decrease hospitalization and the length of stay is one of the keys to successfully meeting this challenge. This article provides an overview of programs which, if implemented, will do much to either eliminate or shorten hospital days.