As a seasoned Healthcare Chief Executive Officer or Chief Financial officer, nobody appreciates better than you the extreme financial pressure your industry experiences.

From l negative incentives to perform, l skewed rewards-sharing system, l paperwork inefficiencies, l flawed/abused tort system, l disconnected consumer, l entitlement expectations, l "competing" objectives, it's a wonder some systems have been able to survive as long as they have. It's not getting any better. Tax exemptions are disappearing, the bull market appears to have substantially weakened, and at the current spending rate, as one attempts to provide the same clinical menus and service offerings, cash reserves will continue to be depleted.

May we respectfully suggest that the application of Best Asset Management and Investment Recovery Practices, as successfully executed by the industrial sector, directly benefits Healthcare.

Most immediately, consider the strategic importance of Asset Management when you contemplate acquisitions. Significant, long-lasting acquisition mistakes can be minimized when taking a strategic approach to property valuation and utilization. Similarly, well-implemented ASSET MANAGEMENT CLOSURE STRATEGIES can make an incredible difference to the bottom line. If sufficient advanced planning is possible, an owner can be ensured that the highest possible value/return is being attained for discontinued, sold and closed operations, and that risks and liabilities can be considered and minimized.

More fundamentally, however, many healthcare companies are considering ALTERNATIVE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS, not just to enhance their financial performance, but to fundamentally improve the way they manage. The motivation may be offensive, i.e., outperform/defeat the competition, or defensive, i.e., survival in this extraordinarily difficult environment.

Many leading Manufacturing and Service companies are committed to the belief that effective management of capital is the true economic metric, i.e., ultimately, business value and success is determined by how well capital is managed. Founded on these principles, Stern Stewart and Company, the elite Financial Management Consulting Company, has had a successful ECONOMIC VALUE ADDED (EVA®) practice for decades. Re-Logistics' Asset Management and Investment Recovery Practice is an important tactical supporter of an EVA® strategy.

In any of these cases, I trust the reader will want to learn more about Re-Logistics' Best Investment Recovery (IR) Practices Programs, and explore with us how, in partnership, the practices and processes of IR can be exploited.

Finally, consider how much easier it will be to justify new appropriations and rate requests when it can be demonstrated that one has identified and eliminated all assets not contributing to the current mission, i.e., when it can be shown that every self-help opportunity has been realized.