Waste & Savings

Submitted by Dr. JG Kaplan on Mon, 2009-12-28 20:57

One of the main goals in health care reform lies in reducing waste.

Committee on Quality of Health Care in America, 2001; Milstein, 2004

Indeed, there are many opportunities to reduce administrative, operational and clinical waste.  For example, see RAND COMPARE and Health Information Technology (HIT)-Enabled Savings in Operational Waste.

Area Yearly Savings at 100% Adoption ($billions) Yearly Medicare Savings at 100% Adoption ($billions)
Outpatient    
Transcription 1.9 0.4
Chart Pulls 1.7 0.3
Laboratory Tests 2.2 0.5
Drug Utilization 12.9 2.6
Radiology 3.6 0.7
Subtotal 22.3 4.5
 
Inpatient    
Nurse Shortage 12.7 3.9
Laboratory Tests 3 0.9
Drug Utilization 3.7 1.1
Length of Stay 36.7 11.3
Medical Records 2.5 0.8
Subtotal 58.6 18
 
Total $80.9 $22.5

SOURCE: Table 2, Girosi, Meili, and Scoville, 2005.

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