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Herald Editorial Board

Bob Bolerjack,
Opinion Editor
bolerjack@heraldnet.com

Carol MacPherson,
Editorial Writer
cmacpherson@
heraldnet.com


Allen Funk,
Herald Publisher
funk@heraldnet.com

Kim Heltne,
Assistant to the Publisher
heltne@heraldnet.com

Send letters to the editor by e-mail to letters@heraldnet.com, by fax to 425-339-3458 or mail to The Herald - Letters, P.O. Box 930, Everett, WA 98206.

 
WEEK IN REVIEW
Tuesday
Two suspects sought in Everett shooting that in...
School levies in Snohomish County all passing, ...
Police seek witnesses in two accidents
Monday


Lynnwood woman knew area's stories long before ...
Everett rethinks boutique wineries
A tidy lawn could be law in Lynnwood
Sunday


Marysville family comes together amid devastati...
Monroe Correctional Complex to lessen security ...
Extra patrols will be watching for drunken driv...
Saturday


Olympics are in the air
Everett police officers cleared in 2008 shootin...
Edmonds woman leaves gift of millions
Friday


Budget squeeze may close beloved Trafton school
Endgame near on airport flight debate?
Aaron Reardon laments political sparring with c...
Thursday


4-car police pileup in Everett under investigation
Edmonds educator, famous announcer dies
Bill would suspend limits on tax hikes
Wednesday


Citizenship classes: All for a better life
Many Snohomish County kids haven't had second d...
Snohomish County jail thrives under sheriff's m...
 

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Published: Wednesday, July 22, 2009

HEALTH CARE REFORM

Our region offers solutions

If health care reform doesn’t get a handle on spiraling costs, it will fail. Medicare and Medicaid are already racing toward insolvency, and if costs aren’t curbed, adding more subsidized care to the government’s tab will only hasten a fiscal catastrophe.

Now some good news: Such strides are well under way locally, and the rest of the nation is taking notice. That’s why three local health-care leaders were invited to Washington, D.C., this week to explain how they’ve achieved envious results in keeping costs down and quality up.

Dave Brooks, CEO of Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, Dr. Harold Dash, board president of The Everett Clinic, and Rich Maturi, senior vice president of Premera Blue Cross, shared what they’re doing right at a symposium called “How Do They Do That? Low-Cost, High-Quality Health Care in America.”

Health-care leaders from 10 high-performing regional health systems were chosen to appear at the symposium, jointly hosted by a distinguished group of health organizations and think tanks. The idea was to examine the factors — culture, finance, delivery structures, etc. — that enable certain communities to provide low-cost, high-quality care.

One of the event’s moderators was Dr. Atul Gawande, a surgeon whose recent article in The New Yorker described why the town of McAllen, Texas, had the nation’s highest Medicare costs without ranking high in quality of care. (McAllen spends more than twice the per-patient Medicare average of Everett, which ranks higher in quality measurements.) Gawande’s conclusion: Patients in McAllen got plenty of expensive treatments, but not necessarily the treatment they need. Rather than a medical culture centered on quality and cost-effectiveness, McAllen’s has grown to emphasize quantity of treatments — largely because Medicare provides the financial incentives for it.

If that’s the future of our health-care system, we’ll soon be sunk. Lessons about what’s working well must be applied with urgency throughout the country. Decisions about public-option insurance plans and how to pay for covering the uninsured will have little meaning if overall costs bankrupt us.

In Snohomish County, Providence and The Everett Clinic have been on the leading edge of innovation in the delivery of cost-effective care, and have piled up national awards for quality. They and some of the other top-performing regions are blazing trails the rest of the nation should be following.

It’s gratifying — not to mention comforting — to live in one of the regions that’s leading the way toward cost-effective, quality health care. That the Everett area is recognized for it nationally is pretty cool, too.

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