Dick Seim acknowledges that be has been taking a crash course on York Hospital and the Central Pennsylvania health care industry over the past couple of weeks.
"I've been in a lot of meetings," said Seim, who became president of York Hospital and senior vice president of York-based WellSpan Health June 3. "I'm meeting with physicians and board members and standing committees and a number of people individually, just to kind of get a sense for who they are and what their values are."
Seim, pronounced Sim, might be new to York, but he's worked in the hospital industry for more than 20 years. Before he came to Central Pennsylvania, Seim was senior executive officer at Christ Hospital in Cincinnati and senior vice president for the Health Alliance, a Cincinnati health system.
Seim recently sat down with the Central Penn Business Journal at his York Hospital office and discussed health care, his plan for York Hospital and the future of hospital care.
CPBJ: Why did you decide to pursue a career in health care? What attracted you to the industry?
Seim: ... I'm not thoroughly familiar with every industry that's out there, but I have not yet discovered an industry that's as complex and complicated as the health care industry. You have a provider of services, and you have several groups that are receivers of services, and you have another group that is a payer of services, and then even, perhaps, another group that sets the pricing for those services. That creates a very complicated configuration, and that's very challenging. And I like the challenge of that. I don't know if anyone's totally figured out all of the interrelationships.
It's an environment that I find energizing and challenging. And I think health care, as an industry, is a pretty noble industry to be involved with. It uniquely, I think, has to do with the well-being of individuals, and it represents a set of occupations that I think, for the most part, people can be proud to say they're involved with.
CPBJ: You've been here only a short time, but are there any particular differences you've noticed between the health care environments in Cincinnati and Central Pennsylvania?
Seim: The local environment is much different here ... Christ Hospital, where I came from, had the leading market share in the area, as does York Hospital. The difference is that Christ Hospital's leading market share was 11 percent. York Hospital is approaching 60 percent. And that creates a whole different relationship, I think, with the community. The second hospital in Cincinnati had a 10 percent market share, so we fought very hard to retain that 1 percent market share and struggled to gain another tenth. That was true of all the hospitals in the Cincinnati area. As a result, I believe we were perceived by the community as being very consumed with the competitive aspects among the hospitals. The situation here is much different, and my sense is that the larger market share here or the fewer number of providers in this area lead more to the community having a sense that the hospital is a community asset. That was a very refreshing difference for me. Other aspects are very similar, in terms of the market pressures and the pressures on providers. The shortage of selected health care professionals is very much the same. The reimbursement limitations and pressures are very much the same. The professional liability and malpractice-insurance pressures are very much the same in both areas.
CPBJ: What are your plans for York Hospital? Where do you see the hospital going in the future?
Seim: As I was brought here, there were no prior agendas given to me, so my short-term approach is to get a firm feeling for the environment and the culture and to get a further understanding of the people. My hope is to continue the positive track that I think York Hospital's been on, in terms of quality and satisfaction. I would like to continue the trend of having York Hospital be the preferred health care provider in the area. To. add to that, I would like for York Hospital to be the preferred health care employer in the area. I think it's very important that our employees want to work here. This is not an easy business for people to work in. It's high pressure, and there are a lot of opportunities for increasingly technological positions, and we're going to have to constantly address the desirability of employment here.
CPBJ: What are the biggest challenges York Hospital, and hospitals in general, face as they move into the future?
Seim: The challenges here are not unique. I think we're on the front end of a technological explosion, more or less, in terms of new capabilities, new drugs, new imaging capabilities, new therapeutic modalities. And all of those come with an ever-increasing price tag. Our consumers are better informed, and I think that their expectations are going to move along very rapidly with the pace of the introduction of new technologies. So, the challenge is going to be how can we, as a hospital or as an industry, keep up with those expectations and be able to deliver the technological aspects, along with the quality and service associated with health care. We have limited reimbursement pressures, we have limited humanresource concerns. So, it's going to be a challenge to keep up with all that.
CPBJ: What assets does York Hospital have that you think will help it overcome these challenges?
Seim: ... I was very impressed with WellSpan's approach to strategic planning. It's as good as I've seen. There is a very sophisticated and, I think, comprehensive approach to strategic planning, which takes it to the step of linking it with the operating plan. So, it's not just a matter of creating a strategy and getting agreement and then coming back and visiting that a year later. There are actually linkages with the operating plan that involve accountability and monitoring and periodic reviews and course adjustments. That, to me, was impressive ... And that strategic plan gives a lot of attention to focusing on community needs. It's not just simply a self-serving strategic plan for the benefit of the organization. I think it's focused on improving care to the community. I think those two things, in concert with that longer look out and tying it to the operating plan, is going to better position York Hospital to prepare for that future, and maybe make some short-term choices that affect the long-term ability to keep up with emerging technology and deliver it on an appropriate basis. It all boils down to the strategic-planning focus and energies that this organization puts into part of its day-to-day culture.
CPBJ: How will hospitals evolve in the future? How will health care consumers' concept of "hospital care" change?
Seim: I think one of the things that we're going to have to do as an industry to deal with the affordability is to focus more on preventative care. We all have given lip service to that over the years, but if we can keep people healthy to avoid the use of the higher technologies, that's a good investment. And I see that as an increasing trend ... For York Hospital, it appears to me that there is a significant part of our organizational structure that's committed to the ambulatory, or the prehospital, care needs of the community. And I think that's a positive orientation that we're going to have to continue to focus on, perhaps to a higher degree. Otherwise, hospitals are going to increasingly become acute-care centers, almost intensivecare providers of service. The acuity levels keep on increasing, so if we can focus more on the outpatient care and the preventative medicine aspects, it may help reduce the increasing utilization of the intense, highcost inpatient care.
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий