[March 26, 2014]

Kaufman Hall Adds Industry Veteran Focused on Developing Software Tools to Strengthen Hospital Costing Systems

Kaufman Hall and Associates, a leading provider of integrated management software for healthcare organizations, announced today that Dan Seargeant, PhD, a seasoned executive in the fields of healthcare finance and information technology, has recently joined the firm in a newly-created leadership position.

Dr. Seargeant is now a vice president with Kaufman Hall's Software Division, focused on expanding the firm's product portfolio to address healthcare providers' need for better costing systems as the industry continues to move toward value-based payment models. Measuring outcomes and costs for every patient was identified as one of six strategic initiatives important in the evolution of healthcare by Michael E. Porter and Thomas H. Lee in the paper "The Strategy That Will Fix Health Care¹," published by the Harvard Business Review this past October.

"Porter and Lee, and numerous others, have commented that existing costing systems in healthcare provide only crude and misleading estimates of actual costs of service for individual patients and conditions," Seargeant said. "I am excited to be working with the outstanding team at Kaufman Hall to equip our clients with an advanced set of tools that will help them accurately capture the costs of the services they provide and make more informed decisions abot their operations."

Dr. Seargeant brings to Kaufman Hall a strong and diverse background in the use of IT and software to support financial management within healthcare. Over the past 20 years, he has served in a variety of roles related to healthcare systems and software, including working with major providers such as Cedars Sinai and Loma Linda while he was a consultant with Healthcare Microsystems. He served as Chief Financial Officer for a large PPO, including responsibilities for accounting, finance and claims processing, and as CFO for a large not-for-profit community-based healthcare provider during the implementation of major improvements to the organization's IT capabilities. As the owner of his own firm, he assisted healthcare organizations of all sizes and types with decision support, strategic planning, and IT management and often worked hands-on as acting IT director, giving him direct insight into the needs and daily operations of providers.

Dr. Seargeant has a doctorate in public health from the UCLA School of Public Health and an MBA in Finance and Information Technology from UCLA. He regularly serves as a guest lecturer for the UCLA School of Public Health.

"Our goal is to help healthcare leaders quantify the financial impact of their strategic and operational decisions, and Dan's knowledge and experience is a great addition as we work to deliver additional solutions to the challenges the industry is facing," said James Bodan, Executive Vice President and head of Kaufman Hall's Software Division. "With the introduction of Strategic Cost Advisor™ this past fall, we are already helping clients better manage cost concerns related to productivity. Service costing is a natural next step in the evolution of our product portfolio."

To learn more about Kaufman Hall's current suite of software tools, please visit www.kaufmanhall.com or contact Senior Vice President Russ Anderson at 847.441.8780 or [email protected].

About Kaufman Hall

Since 1985, Kaufman Hall has been a leading software provider and advisor to hospitals and health systems, helping them incorporate proven methods into their strategic and financial management processes and consistently achieve their goals. Kaufman Hall continues to be exclusively focused on helping healthcare organizations succeed in a rapidly changing industry. We contribute to our clients' success by providing the industry's most advanced offering of integrated management solutions, which includes consulting services and software tools designed to facilitate and sustain organizational improvement. More than 600 hospitals and health systems across the country use Kaufman Hall software to help plan and manage their operations. To learn more, please visit www.kaufmanhall.com.

¹ Porter, Michael E. and Lee, Thomas H. "The Strategy That Will Fix Health Care." Harvard Business Review. October 2013.

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