In a presentation titled “Racing to Value-Based Care: Double Your Ambulatory Platform by 2020,” Regent’s CEO Chris Bishop urged hospital executives at the Becker’s Hospital Review 9th Annual Meeting in April to act now to shake up their health systems in anticipation of looming industry trends, rather than waiting until they’re forced to respond.
Highlighting the healthcare industry’s measured transition to value-based care, Bishop predicted the days of Medicare paying twice as much for a procedure in the HOPD setting versus an outpatient setting are numbered. He also noted primary hip and knee joint replacements are projected to double in the outpatient setting by 2026 and pointed out that dominant retailers like Walmart and Amazon are frustrated enough with healthcare costs to leverage their platform to drive innovation in the next five years.
Suggesting throughout his presentation that leaders adopt a new mindset in this changing landscape, Bishop said “The key is to strategize the following: “How do we disrupt our health systems today to ensure that we’re driving the change and that Walmart / Amazon / Optum are not doing it to us?'”
He offered three key strategies health system leaders can deploy to stay ahead in the race: leveraging specialized expertise to facilitate change, developing five-year plans to guide decision-making, and adopting an interconnected, “spiderweb” approach to their ambulatory platforms rather than the traditional hub-and-spoke relationships that drives care back into the more expensive acute care setting.
“The mentality now, frankly, needs to be, ‘how do I transition care from the inpatient setting to the lower cost outpatient setting?'” said Bishop. He suggested assembling a network of integrated ambulatory assets including diagnostic imaging, urgent care, ASCs, and, within the next five years, a cardiac ASC, womens health / birthing center, etc.
Want to learn more? Click here to download Regent’s free whitepaper, “How to Double Your Ambulatory Platform by 2020.” The paper answers four key questions to help hospitals take charge.
