Pediatric Hospital Medicine 2014: Keynote Speakers Address Healthcare Reform, What Keeps Hospital CEO’s Awake at Night
Presenters
— Welcome Remarks: Doug Carlson, MD, FAAP, chief of pediatric hospital medicine programs, St. Louis Children’s Hospital
— The Next Phase of Delivery System Reform: Patrick Conway, MD, MSc, FAAP, MHM, deputy administrator for innovation and quality, CMO for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
— Hospitals and Health Systems: What’s on the Mind of Your CEO?: David J. Bailey, MD, MBA, president and CEO, the Nemours Foundation; Steve Narang, MD, MHCM, CEO, Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center, Phoenix, Ariz.; Jeff Sperring, MD, FAAP, president and CEO, Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health, Indianapolis.
Summary
PHM 2014 began to heat up in steamy Orlando, as Dr. Carlson, chair of the PHM 2014 Organizing Committee, welcomed more than 800 pediatric hospitalists at the four-day annual meeting dedicated to pediatric hospital medicine.
Dr. Conway, a pediatric hospitalist prior to joining CMS, updated the crowd of ongoing reforms in the U.S. healthcare delivery system, with a focus on pediatrics. Healthcare delivery, Dr. Conway asserted, needs to move from an unsustainable, volume-driven, fee-for-service system to a people-centered, sustainable system where payment can be shaped by value-based purchasing, ACO-shared savings, and episode-based payments.
“Pediatrics,” Dr. Conway said, “is a leader in patient and family engagement, and population health.”
As such, the six goals of the CMS Quality Strategy align well with ongoing PHM efforts:
- Make care safer by reducing harm caused in care delivery;
- Strengthen patient and family engagement as partners in their care;
- Promote effective communication and coordination of care;
- Promote effective prevention and treatment of chronic disease;
- Work with communities to promote healthy living; and
- Make care affordable.
Citing Maryland as an example, where a plan is being considered to shift 80% of hospital revenues to global models by 2018, Dr. Conway painted a picture of a rapidly-shifting reimbursement landscape that will soon be dominated by value-based purchasing, penalties for readmissions and healthcare-acquired conditions, and increasing emphasis on bundled payments, ACOs, and primary care medical homes.
“Hospitals are getting paid to keep people out of the hospital,” he said, and concurrently per capita spending on healthcare is now at historic lows. While pediatric quality measures are not as mature as those for adult patients, many opportunities for increasing value in pediatric care have been developed, such as the Choosing Wisely campaign and the Value in Inpatient Pediatrics (VIP) network.
Although not restricted to pediatrics, the CMS Partnership for Patients also aims to have a major impact on child health. Goals of a 40% reduction in HACs and 20% reduction in preventable 30-day readmissions have been set by the Partnership, with specific focus on 10 core patient-safety areas. Preliminary data have been promising, with a 9% reduction in HACs between 2010 and 2012 across all measures.
“This is a historical reduction,” said Dr. Conway, representing more than 500,000 patient harm events avoided, over 15,000 lives saved, and more than $4 billion in cost savings.
Within pediatrics, a number of research efforts have added to this reduction, including the Pediatric Research in Inpatient Settings (PRIS) Network, PHIS+, I-PASS, as well as several collaborative improvement networks.
Looking to the future, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program will continue to focus on quality initiatives and system transformation. These will include developing more pediatric-focused quality measures, improving health information technology, and continuing to award innovation in pediatrics. Pediatrics will continue to be a leader in these efforts, Dr. Conway said, because “we should care about longer time horizons.”
Four healthcare system CEOs also took the stage to answer questions from the audience, with Mark Shen, MD, president of Dell Children’s Medical Center, posing questions like a seasoned talk-show host. Panel members fielded a wide range of questions, including: