Bryan Health and Saint Elizabeth Regional Medical Center are joining separate hospital alliances in an effort to control costs and better coordinate patient care.
Saint Elizabeth, along with the Nebraska Heart Institute and Heart Hospital and the Catholic Health Initiative-owned hospitals in Kearney, Grand Island and Nebraska City, are joining the UniNet Healthcare Network.
UniNet is an alliance of mostly Omaha-area hospitals that was started by Alegent Health, Creighton University Medical Center and Creighton Medical Associates. Catholic Health Initiative took over Alegent last year, and now its other Nebraska hospitals are joining the group.
“This is really about coordinating care for patients,” said Dr. Barry Hoover, chief medical officer for The Physician Network, a wholly owned subsidiary of Catholic Health Initiative that employs doctors and other health-care providers.
The Physician Network has about 240 members who will join the more than 1,600 health-care providers who are part of UniNet in Nebraska and southwest Iowa, Hoover said.
By coordinating care, he said, doctors and hospitals can cut costs, improve efficiency and ensure better patient outcomes, including fewer hospital admissions and readmissions.
Those are mostly the same goals of a group being formed by Bryan and eight other independent hospitals across the state.
The group, informally known as the Regional Provider Network, includes the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Methodist Health System in Omaha, Columbus Community Hospital, Faith Regional Health Services in Norfolk, Fremont Area Medical Center, Great Plains Regional Medical Center in North Platte, Mary Lanning Healthcare in Hastings and Regional West Health Services in Scottsbluff.
The nine hospitals are forming a limited liability company, and each has signed off on forming a board to govern the network.
Russ Gronewold, Bryan’s chief financial officer, said the nine hospitals are not banding together in response to UniNet but because of the changing health-care environment.
“Our driving force is where we think the market’s going, not where we think our competition is going,” he said.
Both the federal government and insurers are looking to cut reimbursements to providers while also seeking better outcomes.
Gronewold and Ken Foster, Bryan’s vice president of strategic planning and regional development, both said there are essentially two parts to the alliance.
One is the opportunity for cost savings on shared services — increasing purchasing power and eliminating redundancies, for example. There might also be the opportunity to negotiate insurance contracts.
The other is the integration of care, the details of which are still to be decided.
Gronewold and Foster said the hospitals will rely on the expertise of physicians to drive possible patient improvements, which could include eliminating duplication of tests and treatments and offering better post-discharge care.
While the timing of these alliances may be coincidental, what is happening in Nebraska is certainly not unique.
Hospitals and physician practices all over the U.S. are increasingly joining together in either formal or informal alliances.
In the Nov. 12 edition of the “Health Care Current” newsletter, Mitch Morris, vice chairman and national health-care provider lead at Deloitte LLP, wrote that health-care consolidation is accelerating.
He cited statistics that show more than half of all the hospitals in the U.S. are part of a health system, and he also noted a study that showed there were more than twice as many hospital mergers in 2012 than in 2009.
“The stand-alone hospital may be an endangered species — many smaller organizations simply cannot afford to invest in keeping up with facilities, upgrading IT capabilities, attracting the best clinicians, or playing an active role in the emerging payment model innovation game,” Morris wrote. “Nor do they all have the market clout to be considered essential players in narrow health plan networks. As margins shrink and access to capital becomes more difficult, even hospitals in affluent communities are feeling the pinch.”
Both hospital groups are looking to expand their reach even further by attracting independent physicians and smaller rural hospitals.
The regional provider group already has had meetings across the state with hospitals and health-care providers. UniNet has also held meetings and has another one set for Wednesday in Lincoln.
Officials from both groups say response has been positive. Hospitals and providers can join both alliances, and many are likely to do so.
Bryan also has created its own physician-hospital organization, called Bryan Health Connect, that will target physicians in Lincoln and Southeast Nebraska. It will start signing up participants after the first of the year.
According to figures from Bryan, there are nearly 650 doctors in Lincoln, 15 or 20 percent of whom work for either Bryan or Saint Elizabeth.
Source: columbustelegram.com