| HeraldNet - Snohomish County's online news source |
 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2010 1:59 am |
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Editorials 
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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. |
- Sorry, Hawkeye; M*A*S*H gets bowled over
- Former Whidbey student shot
- County archive software paid for but waiting for set-up
- Ruling expected on Sultan beating statement
- ‘Roadkill’ caucus seeks a voice for centrist Democrats
- Police seek witnesses in two accidents
- PAWS calls out for critter care-givers
- Boeing has a busy test schedule
- Ex-Boeing engineer jailed for espionage
- Morning mystery: What happened to House Bill 3181?
- Lynnwood sets height limit on grass: 8 inches
(10) - State Senate votes to toss I-960's tax-raising hurdle (9)
- School levies in Snohomish County all passing, Marysville bond failing (6)
- A tidy lawn could be law in Lynnwood (4)
- Vote on school levies by Tuesday (3)
- Two suspects sought in Everett shooting that injured two (3)
- County archive software paid for but waiting for set-up (3)
- Former Whidbey student shot (2)
- Snohomish County's bargain housing won't last (2)
- Reader poll: Should the WIAA add lacrosse as a sanctioned sport? (2)
- Jackson girls outlast Meadowdale owdale
- OBT raises barre in children’s program
- Junior firefighters
- School levies passing
- Mavericks topple Wolfpack
- Get a second look at Second City Feb. 13
- Sports Briefs
- Warriors advance 11 to regional meet
- Arlington's Cascade Valley Hospital celebrates expansion, national award and 100 years of service
- Business Licences Feb. 2010
- Technology tips for launching your own business
- Business Events Feb. 2010
- Tech Talk: No excuse today for going without a Web site
- State already raising fees and rates that restrict business growth
- Some legislators again targeting people’s initiative petition rights
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