Jun
3
Written by:
Elizabeth Roberts
6/3/2010 12:15 PM
As we’ve talked about health care reform in the past year, Geisinger Health Systems has become one of the “buzz” names—in part thanks to several mentions by President Obama, who called them one of the “islands of success” in health care during his televised speech before Congress last fall. And it’s more than just buzz: Geisinger has made health care work, with both better quality of care and lower costs than national averages.
Later today (Thursday), Rhode Island will have the opportunity to hear from a top official at Geisinger in the latest installment of the Making It Work series of free forums I’m sponsoring with Rhode Island Foundation on health care reform in Rhode Island. Ron Paulus, a physician and MBA, is the executive VP of clinical operations as well as the chief innovations officer for Geisinger, and he will talk about the future of health-care delivery systems by looking at what has worked at Geisinger and elsewhere in the country.
I asked Dr. Paulus to speak here because he’s someone who can talk about what successful health care reform looks like in a real-world setting. Geisinger is a physician-led health care system that operates several hospitals, numerous community-based clinics and an insurance company. Geisinger says its approach encourages teamwork, which leads to better results, fewer mistakes and increased profits.
Higher quality health care, better patient outcomes, lower costs and happier doctors—clearly this is a model worth examining!
I invite you to join us to hear more about the Geisinger model—what has worked, and what could work for us here in Rhode Island—tonight at 5:30 p.m. at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Warwick. To register, please email jleung@ltgov.state.ri.us. I hope to see you there.
Tags: