Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/644565
27 urgent care and virtual care, at appropriate locations in our service area so individuals can receive the care they need, when they need it. We've welcomed strategic partnerships and affiliations with distant organizations — several more than 100 miles from Seattle — to help ensure people can readily access services previously unavailable in their home communities. We also led the formation of the Puget Sound High Value Network, an alliance of healthcare organizations that understands patient access, quality and safety are foundational to healthier communities." West Virginia Virgil Underwood, CEO, Boone Memorial Hos- pital (Madison) "Boone Memorial Hospital is a critical ac- cess hospital in the southern West Virginia coalfields. Our society faces many challeng- es in regard to healthcare. One of the most pressing concerns in our healthcare market is that of vascular diseases. Heart disease and diabetes rank very high within our geo- graphic population. Many of these diseases are prevalent due to the high incidence of obesity, tobacco use and sedentary lifestyles. West Virginia is ranked 47th in the nation for obesity and has one of the highest tobacco use rates in the nation. Over 28.6 percent of our population smokes or uses tobacco products. ese issues combined with a sedentary lifestyle create a population with high rates of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Boone Memorial Hospital is working diligently to combat these issues through education and the promotion of diet and exer- cise. Our certified diabetic educators conduct public classes on diabetes education, prevention and diabetes maintenance. Our organization hosts various public educational forums on smok- ing cessation, including the dangers of tobacco use. Boone Me- morial Hospital provides a community wellness program locat- ed within our cardiac rehabilitation department. This program is open to the public and directed by an exercise physiologist. One of our greatest endeavors to educate the community is through our annual health fair. Over 600 participants attend. The health fair promotes the importance of daily exercise and moderate diet, as well as the need to have annual checkups and well visits by primary care physicians." Wisconsin Cathy Jacobson, President and CEO, Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin (Milwau- kee) "In each community we serve, behavioral health is consistently among the top issues identified by our community health needs assessments. Our health network, Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin, recog- nized the need to enhance our capabilities in this area as we develop our population health model. ough we have services from community-based providers to the expertise and training at the academic medical center, the system of care is not integrated with the rest of our delivery network. Our work this year is to determine how to develop a care model integrated into our patient-centered medical homes and then develop the connec- tions to the other services needed by our patients. On a community level, the most acute need has been identified in urban Milwaukee. Froedtert Health along with the Medical College of Wisconsin, the other health systems serving Milwaukee County, FQHCs and state, county and city health departments are members of the Milwaukee Health Care Partnership. e MHCP is dedicated to improving healthcare for the underserved populations in Mil- waukee County. In this role, the MCHP recently endorsed a Behav- ioral Health Steering Committee and identified this initiative as a communitywide priority of the participating members. Wyoming Phyllis Sherard, PhD, MHA, MPA, Chief Strategy Officer and Vice President of Popula- tion Health, Cheyenne Regional "As public and commercial payer expec- tations for well-managed care are rapidly tightening, we recognize the need to pre- pare for the inevitable 'demand destruction' that is already beginning to be felt on hos- pital margins still dependent on inpatient volumes. Well-managed populations in the new era will receive more primary care and thus will need fewer emergency depart- ment visits, and effective care management and care transitions are already reducing hospital readmissions. Managing our costs is a very high priority. Becoming well-prepared, both strategically and operationally, to execute and manage risk-based populations heads the top of our 'must-do list.' Optimization of our clinical practices and implementation of population health management strategies are imperative if we are to succeed with alternate payment models. Additionally, we are challenged more and more by market dynamics as Denver-based health systems aggressively expand their hospital footprints and physician networks into Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming. When you couple operating a nonprofit hospital in a state that has not expanded Medicaid, we are increasingly seeing our competitive advantage go to health systems in contiguous states that did expand Medicaid and have been able to invest charity care dollars into infrastructure improvement and technology, and even into growing their physician networks. We have prioritized our efforts this next year around achieving our value-based purchasing goals, performance improvement and high reliability. Ambulatory service growth and more efficient workflows, practice leadership and governance in inpatient and ambulatory settings will strengthen our ability to deliver on the three-part aim of better health, better care at a lower cost. We will also continue our efforts to control our costs and embark on a second round of mid-leader driven, cost-reduction identification, which was so very successful for us in 2015. Nursing workforce shortages keep our CNO up at night, and we're hard at work innovating and integrating care delivery across the system in hospital units and ambulatory settings. And last but not least, we are casting a wide net to identify strategic care alliances that will enhance services to our primary and secondary service areas." n