In a post-Affordable Care Act landscape, there is increasingly less room for independent community hospitals.
"What has worked for community hospitals in the past--taking independent actions to sustain the expertise, technology, equipment and facilities to meet community health needs--will not work in the future," writes Richard H. Aubut, president and chief executive officer of South Shore Health and Educational Corp., in an opinion piece in the Boston Globe, citing the closure of North Adams Regional Hospital last month.
Under the ACA and Massachusetts' 2006 healthcare reform law, Aubut writes, community hospitals must take greater responsibility for population health. To that end, some hospitals around Massachusetts form integrated health systems, he writes. The integrated model is fundamental to achieve the "Triple Aim" of healthcare: better population health, higher-quality individual care and lower costs, according to Aubut.
While South Shore formed affiliations with providers such as Brigham & Women's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Aubut says, these relationships have major drawbacks, such as "an inability to efficiently share talent, patient information, best practices and clinical protocols." The integrated care model is ideally suited to making necessary changes in healthcare funding and delivery, which is why South Shore wants to join Partners Healthcare, New England's largest provider.
Meanwhile, Medical University of South Carolina Hospital (MUSC) will join with four competitors--Greenville Health System, Palmetto Health, Self Regional and McLeod Health--to save money, the Charleston Post and Courier reports. "The ACA is really putting pressure on hospitals to cut costs," Pat Cawley, M.D., vice president for clinical operations at MUSC, told the Post and Courier. "This is a response to that."
An alliance between four systems this large and wealthy is unprecedented in South Carolina, according to the article. The participants will continue to operate independently under their own boards. "We think there are ways to actually get together and still remain independent," Cawley said.
To learn more:
- here's the Globe opinion piece
- here's the Post and Courier article