Description: The article has the topic of healthcare first login, it shows us some introductions about healthcare first including the servives it can provide for the people in an integrated delivery network. Health first also supports the health of the community by providing care to all the people.
I’m Steve Johnson, the president and CEO of health, first you’re not for profit and locally operated healthcare integrated delivery network, you may be asking what an integrated delivery network is and why that is important to me, both are good questions.
If you’ll allow me a couple of minutes to set the stage by describing the current state of economics of health care, I’ll share with you what an integrated delivery network is and why it’s important to your personal health and wellness.
The well-being of our community health care simply cost too much in the United States, the cost for health care of all types consumes nearly 18 percent of our gross domestic product, put another way 18 cents out of every dollar generated by our entire economy goes to pay for health care by comparison.
The next highest health care spun by an industrialized country is France at 11 percent, the size of our health care expense is made even more significant by the size of our national debt which currently stands at 17 trillion dollars, a staggering number you might well wonder what is driving these high and escalating health care costs the answer in solution lies in the economic design of health care.
Since the modern era of medicine began following World War, two most health care services for physicians hospitals and others have been paid for what is called a fee-for-service basis, this means that physicians hospitals and other providers get paid for doing things and for patients running tests performing operations admitting people to hospitals performing MRIs.
The more that is done, the more that is paid, the result is a system that focuses on helping people after they are sick and encourages the use of healthcare services to illustrate, consider the following, it is very clear in our current system on how we pay a cardiologist to treat you if you have a heart attack.
However, few meaningful ways currently exist to pay that cardiologist to work with you to prevent the heart attack from ever occurring, as you can see, we don’t have a health care system in America, we have a sick care system, we need to turn that around, we need to move to a model that focuses increasingly on prevention and wellness.
As we do so, health will improve and the cost of healthcare will go down health, first it has a plan and is actively on the journey to convert ourselves to a wellness and Prevention focused organization.
Our plan is called health first 2020, let me explain the guiding principle of health first 2020 is to link health care and prevention services into a seamless continuum of care, this is called an integrated delivery network or IDM.
The IDN links care services and providers like our physicians fitness centers clinics outpatient services urgent care centers hospitals and others into a unified system that shares information and resources to get people to the right care at the right time for the right duration, no more, no less.
Our goals for the IDN in FERPA Vardar lofty, but achievable, we are going health first to perform in the top 10% nationally in safety quality of care customer experience in cost efficiency, the measures we are using are objective and we compare ourselves to other health systems across the country.
We will not be average, we will be exceptional health first and the communities we serve are very fortunate that the previous leadership and board of our organization had the courage in 1996 to start the health plan and the fortitude to continue with it to the present day.
Many hospitals and health systems started health insurance plans in the mid 1990s and many failed of those that remained many were sold to larger managed care companies in the 2000s.
Now virtually, all of those hospitals and health systems wish they had a local health plan as a locally operated health insurance company healthfirst, health plans will serve as the organizer of the integrated delivery network.
I described it a moment ago, the health plan will work with the IDN to ensure that care begins to focus on prevention and wellness, when care is needed, it occurs swiftly in and exactly the right clinical setting by doing so.
We can work to flip the basic economic model of health care from sick care to what it should be prevention wellness and focus services precisely when needed.
As we ensure more people with health first health plans, it will give us an increasing ability to pay physicians and other parts of the care system to prevent illness and to promote wellness continuing with my previous illustration.
We can create payment models that will enable the cardiologist to prevent heart attacks now, that will be healthcare for the fourth consecutive year, health first plans received an overall plan rating of four and a half stars out of five from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for our Medicare Advantage plans.
We ranked in the second place in Florida for both our Medicare Advantage plans and commercial HMO plans by the NCQA, the National accrediting agency for health insurance plans and we received an excellent accreditation status from the NCQA which is the highest level.
As health first plans continue to grow and focus on prevention and wellness, the integrated delivery network will produce world-class outcomes show increasing emphasis on wellness and prevention and will be relentlessly focused on increasing affordability.
Health first will lead our community into an era of sustainable world-class health care and prevention, we have discussed the economic factors that have led us to this point in the evolution of health care in America.
I’ve also shared with your strategy and commitment to create a world-class and sustainable integrated delivery network using healthfirst health plans as the organizer of care.
I’ll now share with you the status of some of the other components that make up the health, first is IDM, let’s begin with our hospitals, our integrated delivery network offers for excellent hospitals to serve our community health, first cape canaveral health, first homes regional medical center healthfirst Palm Bay and healthfirst Viera within these hospitals, we offer state-of-the-art care in such important clinical areas as services for and treatment of conditions associated with the heart treatment of stroke maternity and neonatal care robotic and other minimally invasive surgery and orthopedics to name, but a few more.
In addition, we are Brevard County’s only level two trauma center complete with first flight helicopter and 24/7 on-site trauma specialist last year, we were blessed to welcome 3400 babies into the world, we served more than a hundred and fifty five thousand people in our emergency rooms and transported five hundred and eighty people on our first flight helicopter in need of time-sensitive trauma or other emergency care.
We touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of people asked here in our Hospital related services, the health first Medical Group consists of over 250 physicians and other clinicians in primary care as well as many specialties.
Our Medical Group grew to that number in 2013, when NEMA agreed to join us the synergies between the legacy health first physicians group and Mima, the two largest medical groups in our County have created a deep and talented multi-specialty group that can support people with a vast array of care needs.
The healthfirst Medical Group has locations of various sizes throughout the county which together served more than a hundred and seventeen thousand patients in 2013 alone, we are proud of the trustee of shown in our Medical Group unlike many hospitals in health systems across the country.
Healthfirst has shown a historical commitment to wellness as evidenced by our four pro health and fitness centers located across the county at pro health and other locations, we offer education and fitness as well as individual coaches and classes.
When desired over 45,000 Pro Health members made over 1.3 million visits to our various locations last year, that shows a community’s commitment to wellness and we want to see it grow.
Our health first aging services are dedicated to improving the health and well-being of older adults by increasing the availability of high quality geriatric care across the continuum of care our senior care and geriatric services have been helping seniors for over a decade through our clinics and programs including specialty geriatric and primary care clinics educational programs memory disorder clinics in home monitoring services and resources for families and caregivers.
Healthfirst also has an extensive community-based network of services such as diagnostics outpatient surgery home care and hospice including our beautiful William childs Hospice House, we are able to provide the most appropriate and affordable treatments for you and your family.
I would like to take a couple of minutes to make you be aware of some of the other ways in which health first gives back to our community in addition to the health and wellness services we directly provide.
We have partnered with the Brevard Health Alliance to support their efforts to provide health and dental services to persons in our community with minimal means to pay for care, each year health first provides the Brevard health alliance with 4.5 million dollars in support and in-kind donations per year.
Health first support directly contributes to the wonderful work done by BHA to care for the underserved in our community similarly, health first has renewed our partnership with the Florida Department of Health for three additional years in sponsoring and adult dental clinic for low-income patients in addition to the obvious benefit of dental services improved dental health also has a strong and positive impact on the overall health of the persons who received these services.
In addition, last year, health first completed nearly two million dollar commitment to Eastern Florida State College to expand its nursing education program and to support direct clinical training for their students in our hospitals.
Health first also supports the health of our community by providing care to all persons who come to us with emergent needs regardless of their ability to pay in total for 2013 counting all contributions we make to other organizations in our direct charity and uncompensated care healthfirst provided 111 million dollars of community benefit to Greater Brevard health first with our team of more than 7500 associates 1600 affiliated physicians and numerous community partners are working tirelessly to positively impact the well-being of Brevard and to provide for a sustainable state-of-the-art integrated delivery network for our community far into the future. Thank you for spending the time reading it.