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Human Capital Summit – Marketplace Perspectives

Mar 17, 2015 6:30:00 AM

On March 11, 2015 we presented the Human Capital Summit. Jill Ostrem and Chad Towner shared marketplace perspectives. Below are the highlights.

HCS-ChadandJillJill Ostrem is the Senior Vice President for Health & Well-Being at Parkview Health. Chad Towner is the CEO of Dupont Hospital, a Lutheran Network Hospital. They are leaders within hospitals doing incredible things each day to save lives and make a difference in their community.

Jill and Chad each shared an update on the innovations and trends their hospitals are experiencing in the marketplace. The following is a recap of the main ideas discussed during the presentation.

The Evolution And Innovation Of Care

Health care is becoming more personal, evidence based, and outcomes driven. Increasingly it is becoming about balancing cost, affordability, and value. There are incredibly high-tech customizations and specializations for individuals that allow hospitals to do more for patients than ever before. From a customized new knee created specifically for a patient to 3D mammogram technology that provides more accurate diagnosis and treatment.

In both Parkview and Lutheran, and hospitals around the country, robots are being purchased to help physicians perform minimally invasive surgeries. They allow the procedures to be completed with such small incisions and sometimes even no visible scarring. They result in much shorter lengths of stay and faster recovery, getting your employees back to work more quickly and increasing productivity.

Primary care doctors are now supported by a much larger team to help take care of you and your employees. And you may find them interacting with you in whole new ways. For example, if you are due for a preventative screening, you might receive an email with a reminder or the office may reach out to make sure you are staying on track. Hospitals aren’t doing this to build business; they are doing it because preventative care is a way to keep you and your employees healthier, on track, and doing what they need to do to manage their own health.

Employers want to help their employees stay healthy and to save money for the organization. They want to know how hospitals are innovating to help with that. Chad shared his response to this question: “With innovation comes investment, in fact it requires investment. Yet in health care, we’re building buildings, buying robots, buying equipment, training staff, recruiting doctors, and yet we’re expected to decrease your costs and take less money. In fact, really what we’re trying to do is to keep people out of hospitals.”

The Goal: Keep People Out Of The Hospital

Both Jill and Chad discussed the goal of their organizations: to keep people out of the hospital. Focus on outpatient efforts, screenings, education, resources. Providing the tools, programs, and resources so individuals can know what they need to do to get better and stay healthy.

Combined, Parkview and Lutheran have invested hundreds of millions of dollars over the last decade to make things better for patients. Hospitals are going to continue to invest in the innovation necessary to help take care of you when you really need them. But they are also trying to help make sure you and your employees have resources available to manage and engage in your own health.

Yet it still comes back to personal accountability. The choices we make every day have an impact on our health. There are many people who take better care of their car than they do their own body. Individuals need to take personal responsibility for their health.

As employers, you also have employees looking to you each day. What are you doing? What choices are you making? How can you lead by example to help your employees take personal accountability for their health and wellbeing?

Costs And Transparency

As we consider personal accountability and encouraging individuals to become smarter health care consumers, the question of cost always comes up. There has been some increased transparency in health care to help show the costs of procedures, and there are some resources available to help individuals find out approximate costs. Yet as the audience pointed out, costs are not available for all procedures, they are not always the easiest to find, and they are not all accurate.

Both Chad and Jill reminded everyone that it is impossible to provide an exact cost in advance for many procedures – there are too many complex factors. The hospital cannot anticipate if they’ll have to call in another doctor into the procedure due to a complication, or if the patient has allergies they neglected to inform the doctor about.

Chad provided an example to help illustrate this point.

An individual develops chest pains. They worry that it is a heart attack and head to the ER. There they go into a room and talk to the nurses and doctors. Tests are run and it turns out to just be indigestion. The doctor tells them to avoid certain foods and sends them on their way. A few weeks later the bill comes and this individual is shocked at the price - $2,000, $3,000 or maybe even $5,000. They complain – it was just indigestion, why so expensive? But what this individual isn’t considering is what was ready and waiting outside that little room. There was a whole team of people ready to crack a chest open and save a life if it turned out to be a heart attack. How do you pay for that?

Each day, hospitals are dealing with people who cannot pay a bill. They are writing off millions of dollars each month. Who are these individuals? Increasingly, they are not the people without insurance. They are individuals with jobs and insurance, but are unable to cover their deductibles and copays.

By embracing change, innovation, and personal responsibility, there are solutions. But they won’t be immediate. And it requires engagement by every stakeholder to make the evolution possible.

 

Gibson

Written by Gibson

Gibson is a team of risk management and employee benefits professionals with a passion for helping leaders look beyond what others see and get to the proactive side of insurance. As an employee-owned company, Gibson is driven by close relationships with their clients, employees, and the communities they serve. The first Gibson office opened in 1933 in Northern Indiana, and as the company’s reach grew, so did their team. Today, Gibson serves clients across the country from offices in Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Utah.