Page 14 - SFHN717pagesFINAL.qxp_SFHN 0608 Friday 5.0

DCOTA I 1855 Griffin Road, Suite A-415 I Dania Beach I Florida I 33004
954.964.1660 I www.SFHHA.com

Cover Story: SFHHA 11th Annual
Health Care Summit: SFHHA Events

Chasing the Triple Aim August 3rd – 1st Annual Healthcare Night and Mixer
6pm - Hard Rock Stadium
For information go to sfhha.com or call SFHHA office 954-964-1660
Continued from page 1
ly the older adult and terminally ill, through an enhanced patient experience that simul- November 2nd - SFHHA 25th Annual Golf Tournament
taneously lowers Medicare spending per beneficiary across the care continuum. Patients
near the end-of-life and their families seek high quality care at the right place and the 7:30 am Registration, Breakfast and Putting Contest • Shotgun Start – 9am
right time, and the majority is able to have it provided in their setting of choice, at home For information go to sfhha.com or call SFHHA office 954-964-1660
surrounded by loved ones. VITAS helps hospitals achieve the Triple Aim by acting as a
trusted partner to coordinate discharge planning and transition of care from the hospital
facility onto the hospice benefit.
A number of studies document that 80 to 90 percent of people prefer to die at home, By providing robust end-of-life care, as well as helping with care transitions, education
and unfortunately only one-third are currently able to do so. This is where a mature, end- and awareness, and advance care planning, VITAS serves as an extension to help our
of-life provider such as VITAS can partner with hospitals (and all healthcare providers) healthcare partners achieve Triple Aim. Our interdisciplinary team can evaluate the
to help transition hospice-appropriate patients efficiently to the appropriate setting. patient and coordinate care in the setting of choice and provide high quality care through
Recent studies have highlighted that 30 percent of patients who have passed had a visit end-of-life, helping to reduce/eliminate unnecessary hospital emergency room visits and
to the ICU in their last month of life, and 50 percent experience at least one emergency hospital readmissions.
room visit in the last month of life. Hospice provides a great opportunity to transition We leverage mobile technology to not only assist our employees across the country, but
patients in a more timely fashion, while keeping them comfortable and improving their also work seamlessly with other providers to build interoperability with their EMR/EHR
quality of life. Our patient- and family-centered approach starts with our interdiscipli- systems. When a hospice patient is identified, we can effectively and efficiently use our
nary team (physician, nurse, aide, social worker, chaplain) throughout their stay on hos- electronic platform to deploy our care team, admissions nurses and patient concierges to
pice as well as provides bereavement support for that patient’s family upon death, which coordinate the discharge process.
VITAS provides indefinitely as long as any family member desires this support. We will continue to expand our interoperability platform, which will benefit our part-
From a cost perspective, the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society published a ners as they become more incentivized to coordinate a hassle-free, timely transition of
study last year that found one-third of Medicare beneficiaries go through four or more care. We continue to make significant investments around our business intelligence and
transitions of care in the last six months of life. This can include transitions between the enterprise data warehouse capabilities to provide a mature platform to securely and
hospital, nursing home, home health and hospice, which generally does not align with dynamically share outcome-based information for all of our healthcare partners through-
patient and family goals, provides poorer quality of care, and is not cost-effective. VITAS out the country. We are able to share information with physicians and health systems
and other post-acute providers can help reduce the cost of healthcare by working togeth- which refer patients to VITAS in the event that they want to measure the benefits of
er to eliminate unnecessary and often burdensome transitions. appropriately identifying and coordinating end-of-life care within how they measure
A Kaiser Foundation study recently illustrated that roughly 25 percent of all traditional themselves for Triple Aim.
Medicare spending for healthcare takes place in the last year of life. By partnering with In all value-based reimbursement models, our partners would have a vested interest in
other healthcare providers, we can help them achieve Triple Aim; in fact, a Health Affairs whether we took appropriate care of patients through providing a cost-effective setting
study shows roughly $2,500 lower overall costs in patients who elected hospice com- of care, while improving their overall quality and satisfactions scores. We can share this
pared to those who did not prior to death. Another study that focused on oncology information with them in a secure, HIPAA-protected fashion, providing transparency to
patients published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found those who all.
died with the benefit of hospice cost about $8,700 per patient less on average compared Since the inception of VITAS, we have measured our results on all three dimensions of
to those who died without the benefit. Moreover, almost 75 percent of the non-hospice Triple Aim - improving the patient experience, improving the health of populations and
group died in either the hospital or a skilled facility, potentially adversely affecting the reducing the per capita cost of health care - as each of these dimensions reflects the pur-
hospital’s mortality rate. pose of the hospice benefit.

NEW MEMBERS: Addadox, IDS • Century Ambulance • Scrivas, LLC

2017 BOARD OF DIRECTORS SFHHA COMMITTEES
Chantal Leconte James Ball Dr. Patrick Taylor
Chair, South Florida Hospital COO, Catholic Health Services CEO, Holy Cross Hospital
and Healthcare Association Dr. Ann Wehr
CEO, Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital Ana M. Viamonte Ros, MD Education Committee
Director Medical Staff Development Sr. VP/CMO, AvMed
Lincoln Mendez Baptist Health Doug Bartel
Immediate Past Chairman Maria Currier Director, Business Development Healthcare Finance and Management Committee
South Florida Hospital Florida Blue
and Healthcare Association General Counsel, Partner
Holland & Knight, LLP
CEO, South Miami Hospital Darcy Davis
CEO, Health Care District Health Information Technology Committee
David Wagner William Duquette of Palm Beach County
Vice Chair, South Florida Hospital CEO, Homestead Hospital
and Healthcare Association Steven Ullmann Ralph Marrinson
CEO, Kindred Hospital, Hollywood President, Marrinson Senior Marketing and Public Relations Committee
Director, University of Miami
Mary Zalaznik Health Policy Management Care Residences
Secretary, South Florida Hospital and John Couris
Healthcare Association Patricia Greenberg President & CEO Membership Committee
Sr. Vice President Operations, VITAS President, National Healthcare Associates
Jupiter Medical Center
Mark Doyle Michael Gittelman Kevin Conn Quality and Patient Safety Committee
Treasurer, South Florida Hospital and CEO, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute Reg. VP of Operations
Healthcare Association Charles Michelson HealthSouth Corporation
CEO, Memorial Hospital Pembroke
Partner Safety and Security Committee
Charles Felix Saltz Michelson Architects Enrique A. Vicéns-Rivera,
Member at Large Wael Barsoum, MD JD, MHSA
Publisher, South Florida Hospital CEO, Cleveland Clinic Hospital CEO, HealthSouth Rehabilitation
News & Healthcare Report Hospital of Miami
14 July 2017 southfloridahospitalnews.com South Florida Hospital News