by
Nancy Ryerson, Staff Writer | June 26, 2013
From the June 2013 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Collaboration and new models of sharing risk between hospitals and insurance companies will be necessary to reduce costs, improve quality and add value to the patient. Population-based health management will necessitate access to all elements of the continuum of care starting with primary care and ending with post acute care such as nursing homes and rehabilitation. As a nation, we will have to address end-of-life care and help patients and families develop more comfort with hospice and advance directives. Population-based health management will put pressure on health care organizations to design themselves like insurance companies and put laser-like focus on variation, standardization of care and transparency of outcomes. Population-based care by definition requires access to data and large amounts of population-based data. Most hospitals are not equipped to gather or analyze big data.
In the state of Texas, health care organizations are also confronted with the challenge of serving a population with fewer primary care doctors than the national average and 25 percent of the population lacking any form of insurance.
DMBN: What plans do you have for the future of the hospital?
JW: As discussed, population-based health management and the ability to accept risk with an insurance element will be critical for the future. Developing key services into service lines, institutes, or destination centers will also be critical. The next step in transition of financial risk will likely be bundled payments or the concept of consolidating acute care payment and post acute payment into one episode for the patient.
Click here to see the pictorial for Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas
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