Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/610563
31 2015 YEAR REVIEW in On the Record 50 Best Healthcare Quotes of 2015 By Emily Rappleye F rom the King v. Burwell decision to hackers to superbugs, healthcare has not been short on action in 2015, nor have its top players been short on commentary to qualify it. e following 50 quotes from healthcare executives, politicians, physicians and others are the some of the most memorable words uttered in the healthcare space this year. Here they are, in no particular order. 1. "Pure applesauce." Justice Antonin Gregory Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court during the King v. Burwell dissent on claims that the Affordable Care Act must equate federal and state exchanges if it defines "qualified individuals" as those who live in the "State that established the Exchange," because there would otherwise be no qualified indi- viduals on federal exchanges 2. "e statutory scheme compels the Court to reject petition- ers' interpretation because it would destabilize the individual insurance market in any State with a Federal Exchange, and likely create the very 'death spirals' that Congress designed the Act to avoid." John Roberts, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, in the ruling on King v. Burwell 3. "We want to do good, but my biggest responsibility is that the people we send in are safe and come home safe. is may be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the team. ey are going to a beautiful country with beautiful people. e Nepalese are facing an enormous tragedy now, but the lessons the team will learn from them will last a lifetime." Scripps Health President and CEO Chris Van Gorder on sending a medical response team to Nepal after the April earthquake 4. "If we're perceived as a bully or we're perceived as arrogant through our actions, I don't want that. We know we have to soen our external relations, and get ourselves out of this place of being a miscreant in Massachusetts." David "Torch" Torchiana, MD, CEO of Boston-based Partners HealthCare, in The Boston Globe 5. "e biggest [surprise] is just how hard it is to move our patient satisfaction scores. Our other one is just how slow the rate of change actually is despite how breathless we all feel. We talk a lot about how pay is reforming, but I don't know a system that is not still on fee-for-service." Kate Walsh, president and CEO of Boston Medical Center, at the Becker's Hospital Review 6th Annual Meeting 6. "[Physicians] are going to look at you sideways if you ask them to align, but if you ask them to be the leaders and determine what the future will look like, they will rise to the challenge." Lucy Hammerberg, MD, chief quality officer of Northwest Com- munity Hospital in Arlington Heights, Ill., at the Becker's Hospital Review 6th Annual Meeting our industry and others. Unfortunately, many healthcare provider organizations do not take the philosophy of paying top dollar to hire and retain the best IT teams and leadership. Ryan Smith Senior Vice President of Information Technology and CIO of Banner Health (Mesa, Ariz.) Highs: In my opinion, the highlight in health IT this year was a relatively smooth transi- tion to ICD-10 showing that our industry can rise to significant, broad scale initia- tives. I'd also include vendor agreement on supporting a set of national data interoperability standards — a feat that many industry experts expected would take many years to reach consensus. Finally, I've been pleased to see the pos- itive impact IT is making toward enabling population health management and engaging consumers in their personal health and wellness. Lows: The single greatest challenge related to health IT this year has been the expo- nential rise in reported data breaches involving personal health information. Also, despite the groundswell around standardizing data exchange, the chal- lenges around efficient (and useful) data exchange are still significant, posing many challenges to care coordination. Fi- nally, I would call out the added burden and time pressures that physicians are experiencing with the increased regula- tory requirements around EMR usage. n 31