Report forced health-care changes - Tampa Bay Business Journal:

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A state commission createed havoc for Western New York health care executives in late 2006 with a list of recommendationws that included closing hospitals and merging competinhealth systems. Two and a half yearsa have passed since the Statd Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Centur y made publicits report, which would come to be known simplh as the Berger Commission after its chairman. Some say the commissio forced the beginning ofreform efforts, while otherz still have doubts on its efficacy.
One thing is Health care in the eight-county region has undergone sweeping Arguably the most visible of those changesw has been the creationof , a unifying parent company formed after a year of intense fighting betweenb and Jody Lomeo, ECMC president, says the two organizationss would never be where they are toda y had it not been for the Bergeer Commission. “They’ve inspired us to go from a competitiv e situation to more of a collaborative situation and realluy to finally takea good, hard look at what’s right for the community on a much larger scale than just our individuakl institutions,” he says.
James Kaskie, Kaleida presiden t and CEO and president of Great LakesHealth System, says the commissio n forced reform that was Still, he says Western New York faced changes that othere regions of the state avoided through politics. “A lot of marketas should have stepped up to the reform effortand That’s not true for Western New York,” he says. Kaskiwe called the creation of Great Lakes Healtgh one of the greatest outcomes of theBergee Commission, helping to eliminatwe duplication and improve access. Next will come the joint creation of the GlobakVascular Institute, followed by the closure of Millard Fillmore Hospitalp – Gates Circle.
“It’d just starting a chain reaction of positive he says. The Catholi Health System has implementedr all of theBerger Commission’s recommendations, includinyg shuttering its Nazareth Nursing Home and avoiding a closurr at St. Joseph Hospitalo by transitioning it to a satellite campus of Sisters ofCharityu Hospital. But CHS officialsw caution against seeing Berger as a catalystfor “It wasn’t really says Dennis McCarthy, vice president for publid relations and government affairs.
“This was about capacity and abouyt closing buildings and while some of that might have been worthb considering and part of an overall reform plan, it’s only a piecr of how you reform health care. Many of the reformxs happening in health care now are more likel y a result of the economy andbudgetary issues, he “In the end, it’s hard to say which. It’ like a marble cake – it’s hard to pull it out once it’ mixed in,” McCarthy says. “Did Bergerf have an impact? Absolutely. Was it a good one? We don’rt know.
” Others agree the jury’s stil l out on how the Bergerf recommendations will affect health Bruce Popper is vice presidentat , whichy represents 7,000 hospital workers at 14 facilitiex between Rochester, Buffalo and the Southern Tier. Popper says the underlyinv premise of the commission was that cutting excesz capacity wouldcontain costs, but the reverse seems to be the SEIU’s Rochester facilities are under capacity and premiums are actually Sheila Kee, associate commissionetr for the state Health Department’s Western says the outcome of the Berger Commissionm goes way beyond simply cost savings.
Organizations are cooperating and workin g together in ways no one would have imagined threeyeare ago, including ECMC and Kaleida; and TLC Healthg Network to the south; and and to the “It’s beautiful to see that,” she “Not only are they doing that, but they’re thinking and they know there’ s strength in numbers. That’s the kind of things that lead to betteehealth care.” “So is it perfect No,” Kee says. “Is it a majodr step forward? Absolutely.
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