First Posted: 3/5/2015
LIMA — The business of being a hospital is changing, as care providers become more focused on patients and the community.
“If you don’t look at it from a community perspective, the business model doesn’t make any sense,” said Herbert Schumm, president of St. Rita’s Professional Services.
Healthy eating campaigns, reduced-cost biometric screenings and educational efforts are beginning to characterize much of the work of hospitals.
The changes may not always make sense for the business side of hospitals, but they are the “right thing to do for community,” said Mike Swick, president and CEO of Lima Memorial Health System.
Though other agencies and organizations participate in keeping the community healthy, Swick said, “It’s the hospital’s role because we’re part of the community … I think we need to step up to the plate and kind of lead by example.”
HOW HOSPITALS WORK TOGETHER
To Kathy Luhn, Allen County’s health commissioner, the hospitals and other care providers have been doing just that for years. The community collaboration of healthcare providers has been going on since the 1980s in Allen County, Luhn said.
The county’s hospitals and healthcare networks are “ahead of the curve compared to a lot of communities,” Luhn said.
“I think it’s hard for a community to really move forward unless all the partners are really working together,” Luhn said. “No one discipline or one entity can be responsible for the health of the community.”
Though St. Rita’s Medical Center and Lima Memorial Health System are competitors, they stop competing on certain community health issues for the good of the community. This is the way the industry is going, said Mike Abrams, president and CEO of the Ohio Hospital Association.
“There are business models where hospitals are becoming accountable,” Abrams said. “I think the need is greater … It insists on competing hospitals that are beginning to collaborate.”
Schumm thinks competition between individual hospitals will continue to decrease.
“What you’re seeing in Ohio is there are networks developing, and the networks are going to compete with each other,” he said. “I think that’s going to get away from the individual hospitals competing with each other.”
Both hospitals work with Activate Allen County on community health initiatives.
“Our business is helping keep this community healthy,” said Deborah Roegge De Vita, vice president and chief network integration officer at St. Rita’s.
What Swick calls the “patient-centric model” has been around for three or four years, and it includes focusing not only on community health but the individual patient experience.
“It’s starting to move from a fee for service model to a fee for value model across the country,” Swick said. “It’s a slow process, but it’s starting to happen.”
With the changes comes the challenge of making the model profitable for a business.
“At this point in time, it doesn’t fit in real well,” Swick said. “Eventually the model has to change. We have to get paid for [what we prevent].”
CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS
As the focus changes from providers to patients, where the money goes is changing as well.
Whereas capital improvements used to be in more beds, they are now going more toward retrofitting and technology, Abrams said.
“We used to be able to tell the size and scope of a hospital by beds. … Nowadays you’re seeing magnificent hospitals built with few in-patient beds,” Abrams said.
Six years ago, Lima Memorial made all its rooms private, and St. Rita’s Medical Center has had private rooms for many years. Private rooms lessen noise and possibly decrease the spread of infection, both which increase patient satisfaction, Abrams said.
“More and more you’re seeing the capital moving away from bricks and mortar,” Schumm said.
Recent capital improvements at both hospitals have included robots for surgery, electronic medical records and programs for patients to use.
Some of these are a result of trying to lower the rapidly growing cost of healthcare, Swick said.
With electronic medical records, patients “get better care, it’s higher quality care, and it lowers the cost of healthcare for the community,” Roegge De Vita said.
Tests aren’t duplicated because primary care providers, urgent care providers and the hospital can see what the patient has had done recently.
The electronic medical record is one of the largest capital purchases St. Rita’s has made recently, Schumm said.
Others include tablets St. Rita’s purchased for patients to use in their rooms. Lima Memorial invested in outpatient care.
“The economic formula to being a hospital is changing,” Abrams said. “I think we have a better appreciation for the need to be a pleasant experience for our patients.”
