AHA Forum Explores How Health Care is Transforming

During a period of unprecedented change, hospitals and health systems are working to lead the transformation of care delivery by providing more coordinated, convenient and responsive care to patients and communities. That is the message hospital and health system leaders shared today during an AHA forum at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on how market forces are driving rapid change in the field. 

Hospitals and health systems are “building sustainable coordinated care networks with the scale and scope to innovate, compete with new entrants in the health care market and most importantly, make care better for the patients and communities we serve,” said AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack.

During the forum, AHA Chairman Brian Gragnolati, president and CEO of Atlantic Health System, led a discussion with Michael Howell, M.D., chief clinical health care strategist at Google, and Sam Glick, partner at Oliver Wyman, on how technology, consumerism and health care “disruptors” are upending the market for health care services. 

“We have a health care system that is designed around payment systems, and we need to move to a health care system that is designed around the needs of our communities,” Gragnolati said. 

Ken Kaufman, managing director of Kaufman Hall, moderated a discussion with Elliot Joseph, CEO of Hartford (Conn.) Healthcare; Wright Lassiter III, president and CEO of Detroit-based Henry Ford Health System; and Janice Nevin, M.D., president and CEO of Christiana Care Health System in Newark, Del.; on how hospitals and health systems are partnering to drive innovation, improve quality and expand access to care for patients. 

Among other areas, they discussed partnering with companies to use new technologies to better manage data, expand access to care and allow physicians to spend less time on administrative paperwork and more time caring for patients. 

Nevin spoke about how Christiana Care is “embracing this new competitive environment” and sees it “as an opportunity” for her health system to help patients achieve the health outcomes that are important to them in a way that is affordable for people in all the communities they serve.  

For more on the event, read the blog post from AHA’s Pollack and click on the video below to see a replay of the event in its entirety. Watch for more coverage, highlights and insights from the event.