On the record with medical care
Providence Little Company Chief Executive Liz Dunne
by Liz Dunne
Across the nation, the health care industry faces complex challenges. At Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center Torrance (PLCMMCT), we are turning those challenges into opportunities.
The most noticeable step for PLCMMCT is the recent conversion to an updated electronic medical records system to further ensure accuracy and to provide the framework for an integrated system shared by physicians, hospitals and others involved in each patient’s care. This means that all of a patient’s medical records are in one electronic file that can be accessed by the patient’s entire healthcare team, ensuring that every physician and caregiver can provide the patient with coordinated, appropriate care.
Electronic record sharing
Going a step further, Providence has teamed with hundreds of physicians in the area to establish the innovative Providence Partners for Health, a physician-led partnership that will allow Providence and physicians to share patient data with the goal of improving quality and outcomes.
Chairing this partnership is John Armato, M.D., an accomplished physician on the hospital’s staff. Providence Partners for Health, Dr. Armato said, will position Providence for success in the current reform-based healthcare environment, including participation in pay-for-performance, narrow networks and value-based purchasing programs, which provide incentives and rewards for providers that demonstrate improved quality and control healthcare costs.
“The healthcare industry is changing rapidly with an increased focus on accountability, controlled costs and most importantly, quality,” Dr. Armato said. “Providence Partners for Health provides a tool for us to partner with physicians to share best practices and clinical data and to foster and sustain a system driven by both quality and value.”
Another new care redesign initiative involves establishment of a “medical home” for each patient. This is a team-based healthcare model led by the patient’s primary care physician.
These disease-based, medical homes are expected to improve access to health care, increase satisfaction and because of the comprehensive nature, improve health. Critical tools to this coordinated care system are health information technology and compensation to medical homes that coordinate the management of patient-centered care management.
Accountability is the final piece of the reform puzzle. Accountable Care Networks are alliances of doctors and hospitals that share responsibility for providing care to Medicare patients. Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) receive incentives for coordinating care to limit costs of repeated tests or unnecessary procedures.
Providence Little Company of Mary tradition of quality and compassionate care spans more than 150 years and dovetails with today’s healthcare reform initiatives.
Every patient who comes through our doors is someone’s parent or grandparent, son or daughter or brother or sister. We treat each person as we would our own family.
The healthcare landscape is changing. Consumers are being empowered through new transparency laws that require hospitals to report their quality, outcomes and pricing. To prepare for new healthcare mandates and to control costs, Providence Health & Services is teaming with physicians, sharing best practices among its 32 medical centers in five Western states, keeping costs down by using single vendors across the system, working with physicians on best practices for improved care and working with managers and employees to practice its core value of stewardship to eliminate waste.
Providence Little Company of Mary provides a wide range of specialty programs including award-winning stroke and cardiac programs, oncology, neurology, orthopedics and emergency care. Last year, the hospital was one of just five in the nation to receive the Quest for Quality Citation of Merit Award from the American Hospital Association-McKesson for leadership and innovation in quality improvement.
PLCMMCT also leads the way in the community in advanced technology with da Vinci robotic surgery for lung, gynecologic, urologic and cardiac procedures; a Urology Center for ed treatment; a Heart Center offering advanced cardiac catheterization and angiography equipment, with coronary angioplasty and open heart surgery; a Women and Children’s Health Center offering a full range of educational classes, an inpatient obstetric unit, the community’s first Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) with rooms designed for family privacy; and an on-site Perinatal Center providing complete fetal diagnostic testing and genetic counseling.
One of five Providence medical centers in the Greater Los Angeles Area, the 436-bed facility provided care last year for more than 19,000 inpatients and 62,667 emergency patients. The Emergency Department is a designated Primary Stroke Center and a ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) Receiving Center for patients suffering the most severe heart attacks.
The hospital received the American Alliance of Healthcare Providers’ Choice Award in 2010 for outstanding customer service delivery.
Providence Little Company of Mary Torrance is positioned to meet the challenges of reform on two fronts: a strong dedication to core values, and a parent organization that has implemented innovative ways to meet the needs of its patients and ensure their performance keeps up with the accelerated pace of healthcare change.
Support for the hospital and its mission of outreach to the poor and vulnerable comes from a community dedicated to assisting the Providence Little Company of Mary Foundation in providing the latest technology, training and other assets to the hospital. Last year, Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Centers in Torrance and San Pedro contributed $44 million to charity care and programs serving the under-served. Much of the focus is on preventive care to avoid hospitalization.
We’re here for you when you need hospital care, but we in health care are expanding our vision and working together for healthier communities, to keep you out of the hospital.
Liz Dunne is the chief executive of Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center Torrance.