LHEC President Jon Alspaw and Joel Allison
Joel Allison, President and CEO of Baylor Healthcare System, travels all over Texas speaking to business leaders and community groups. His Friday gig was easy. The Lake Highlands resident spoke to Exchange Club members, familiar faces from his days as an LHHS dad.
Baylor provides $4 billion in healthcare a year, he told them, and $621 million of that is charity care.
“Health care today is constantly in the news,” he said, “and if you’ve experienced it, you know how frustrating it can be.”
“One of the challenges we have, one of the things we have to change, is the financing of healthcare,” he said, “but no one wants less. People want the maximum healthcare that is available. And – this is the unfortunate part – the average family cannot afford the average premium.”
Childhood obesity is one of the biggest costs that threaten us today, he said. Obesity-related illnesses cost us $127 billion dollars per year and our population is 1/3 obese, 1/3 morbidly obese and 1/3 normal weight.
“Smoking and drinking healthcare costs don’t even compare,” he added. “If we would attack this one issue, the youth of today might not face chronic illnesses such as joint issues, diabetes, asthma and many others.”
Allison discussed the pressure on service providers to demonstrate value – to “improve outcomes while lowering total healthcare costs.” The three keys to successfully delivering value under healthcare reform, he said, will be eliminating unnecessary services, better managing chronic diseases, and improving coordination of care.
“Every patient will have a medical home,” he added, “a primary-care physician to be your quarterback. This doctor will manage your care and keep your electronic health record and, using connectivity, manage the total care of the patient.”
Baylor recently signed a letter of intent to merge with Scott & White, he said, which will create a combined $7.7 billion organization, the largest not-for-profit system in Texas. They’ll have 42 hospitals and 350 patient care sites in 25 counties, with 4,000 physicians and 34,000 employees.
