By Guy Page
Vermont’s financially-struggling hospitals need immediate help at the state, health care system, and hospital levels, a consultant told the Green Mountain Care Board today.
In particular, they would benefit from a regional network of specialized care centers, such as surgical centers. And the state needs better housing and transportation options to meet its workforce demands.
Vermont has the fastest growing cost of housing in the nation and is short 25,000 housing units. The Green Mountain Transit Authority is looking at cutting bus routes that now bring workers from the suburbs and exurbs to Burlington, where Vermont’s largest hospital is located.
Dr. Bruce Hamory and the team at Oliver Wyman Life Sciences today are presenting their final report to the Green Mountain Care Board in a public board meeting on Oliver Wyman was contracted to provide recommendations for an affordable, equitable, accessible, and sustainable healthcare system. Below is the gist of the executive summary.
At the State of Vermont government level, Vermont must:
• build workforce and create greater access to transportation and an affordable housing supply, which “are all tightly linked to hospitals through staffing, inter-facility transfers, boarders, avoidable ED visits.
• reconfigure the Agency of Human Services to better coordinate health and social service needs at the community and individual level
• streamline current administrative processes and requirements to minimize the provider burden – for example, simplify prior authorization process of treatment for insurers.
At the health care system level, Vermont needs new regional specialized centers of care (surgery, etc.) to drive hospital efficiency and shift care outside of the hospital setting. Regional centers for different specialties should be identified to support acute, complex medical / surgical needs. Also –
• Community-based care, primary care, mental health care, and housing capacity should be increased to divert care to lower cost settings.
• Healthcare workforce affected by system changes could be redistributed or retrained to perform services needed by the community.
At the hospital level, hospitals should consider reconfiguring their services based on their financial position and community population needs. Several hospitals are at risk of closing their inpatient beds and should consider repurposing their facilities and clinical staff through several options e.g., Rural Emergency Hospital, Community Ambulatory Care Center, Care at Home support program
• Regional specialized centers will need to adapt services to accommodate new patient volumes and changing population health needs.
• UVMMC needs to examine current overhead and administrative costs, especially the proportion of providers supporting non-patient care activities.