Published by: Sandy Laycox on 9/23/2011 11:05:08 AM
As a new member of the NAPH staff, I attended this week’s Fall Conference and Legislative Event with notebook and pen in hand, expecting a crash course in safety net issues of the day. Many inked, spiral-bound pages later, I must admit, I got what I came for. But what I didn’t expect at this early stage of my learning curve was to see the clear connection between the goals and needs expressed by speakers and the work that our members are already doing.
As I listened to a speech by the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Donald Berwick, M.D., M.P.P., one thing stood out. He asked what possible future business model for health care would truly serve need. His answer? “An empty bed is a good one.” It seems counterintuitive to say that success lies in becoming less necessary. But the way to create a truly sustainable health system lies, in part, in creating a healthier population.
Of course, safety net hospitals are always going to be necessary. But there are different kinds of need. Many health conditions, such as autoimmune diseases or accidents, are out of our control. We need safety net hospitals for their groundbreaking treatments, their trauma units and their academic centers. But some of the patients filling those beds are suffering from conditions that they can help prevent in surprisingly simple ways.
This is where I begin to see the connection. Over the past few weeks, I have been talking to members about nutrition programs they’re implementing in their organizations and surrounding communities. Nutrition deficiency plays a role in many serious health conditions. And like CMS, members realize that a key way to cut their ever-growing health care costs is through prevention – the better people eat, the healthier they will be, lowering hospital costs. An empty bed is a good one.
While figuring out how to empty those beds is a challenge, part of it seems to rely on messaging. Berwick mentioned the Million Hearts Campaign, which is a national initiative to prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes over the next 5 years. A key tenet of this campaign is “increasing public awareness of how to lead a heart-healthy lifestyle.” In the same way, several of NAPH members’ innovative nutrition programs focus on education. These members have found that while access to nutritious food can be a problem, especially for homeless populations, many people just don’t know what they should be eating.
Berwick also stressed the government’s role in solving health care problems, calling CMS a “trustworthy partner” in the improvement of health and health care. From what I can see, CMS and NAPH members are already taking similar steps toward health care solutions, so partnership seems like a natural progression. As long as they continue to focus on emptying those beds, together, they can make safety net hospitals truly effective instruments in health care solutions – and truly necessary.