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BRUCE WINTROUB
Chief medical officer, UCSF Stanford Health Care CLINICAL INTEGRATION SUMMARY |
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Although much of this information will be familiar to many of you, I am aware that not all
vehicles of communication reach all physicians and that, in any event, some of these points
probably bear repetition. As I mentioned at the June Town Hall Forum, which was open to all physicians on the medical staff, nearly 100 faculty physicians from both campuses began work as of June 3 on an intensive clinical integration effort. Eight teams of 10 physicians each, with representation evenly divided between the two campuses, are meeting weekly on the following topics: shared expense and budgeting; subsidies/strategic support; incentive structures; RVUs [relative value units] and productivity; academic mission; service line selection; physician organization; and professional fee billing. A ninth team will review the findings of the other teams and assess any impact on the academic mission. The teams are expected to come up with interim recommendations by July 29 ‹ a difficult time constraint made necessary by a variety of factors including our need to begin marketing our merged clinical service offerings when our doors open in September. Although each of the teams has significant challenges to work through, the team that has received the most discussion is the service line group. Although service-line management is relatively new in academic medical centers, the concept is very much in keeping with our intention of creating a distinctive market advantage for academic medicine. In order to take advantage of the opportunity inherent in being the only academic medical center in the extended Bay Area, we must organize ourselves and our services to meet the needs of our customer's ‹ namely, patients, referring physician groups, and health plans. Service lines allow us to cluster services related to a specific disease (for example, cancer) or a specific population (for example, women). Service lines will cross department and specialty designations in order to make services accessible and convenient for the patient. Ultimately, we expect that every UCSF Stanford physician will be in at least one service line; that service lines will serve as the main point of contact in contracting discussions; and that service lines will have their own funds flow, budget and assigned costs. However, we do not expect service lines or the new funds-flow system to be fully operational until year three of the merger. We hope that as we work to build a more patient-responsive organization, the community physicians who admit to our hospitals will be pleased with the changes they may notice in service improvements overall. Although it goes without saying, it probably doesn't hurt to reaffirm that we welcome and encourage the continued participation and input of the physicians practicing in our community and in our hospitals, and we hope to continue the productive local collaborations each campus has enjoyed in the past. |
COLUMNS
Chief of Staff
NEWS
Operations Improvement 8 teams reach targets after months of effort Johnson Center combines obstetrics and neonatology Discharge summaries must be dictated before patients move to SNF Thrombosis and Bleeding Disorder Service opens for referrals Urogynecology center forges ahead with new director, collaborations Physician volunteers sought for RotaCare clinic in East Palo Alto Rizk succeeds Rosenthal as head of ICUs Winning nurses find uses for stipends If it's clean, it goes in green
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