State of the State

In last Thursday's State of the State address by Governor O'Malley, the ten TPR hospitals in Maryland were mentioned.  The except of that part of his speech is as follows:

"...with the leadership of Lieutenant Governor Brown and Secretary Sharfstein, and I must add the support of our Congressional delegation, earlier this month we embarked on a new and better way to improve wellness and reduce overall health care costs.  Let me talk about this for a second.  The old payment system for health care encouraged the volume of services instead of the wellness of our people.  The more sickness, the more pay.  It was a system that made it look as if even our hospitals needed hospitals.  But not any more.  This new approach will change our payment system to reward hospitals for actually keeping people well.  It has been described by health care experts as without any question, the boldest proposal in the United States in the last half century.  Ten of our forty six hospitals in Maryland have already adopted this new approach partnering with nursing homes, public health agencies, primary care doctors, wellness professionals and others to keep their communities well.  It works.  It achieves results.  It's a better way.  And it will improve wellness."

This week, I am in Miami.  I have been invited to present the concept of Total Patient Revenue and how well it has worked at WMHS to first the American Hospital Association at their board retreat and then at the Premier Governance meeting.  Leslie Simmons, the President of Carroll Hospital Center, will join me at the AHA presentation.  Kim Repac, CFO at WMHS, Nancy Adams, COO / CNE at WMHS, and Rolf Haarstad, a WMHS board member, will join me on stage for the Premier presentation, which will be presented twice.

We did a great thing four years ago when we chose to change our approach to health care delivery.  Now others want to learn from us as we blazed a very new and challenging trail in health care.