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BWH President Betsy Nabel shakes hands with Bishop Enos C. Gardner of Chaplaincy after the April 28 Town Meeting.
Patient affordability is about increasing value for our patients and their families either by lowering costs or by improving outcomes. Citing a Partners HealthCare system-wide goal to reduce costs by 10 percent over the next three years, BW/F is off to a strong start, BWH President Betsy Nabel, MD, said at the April 28 Town Meeting: An Open Forum for BWHers.
“Our goal for fiscal year 2011 was to reduce our costs by 3 percent,” Nabel said. “The great news is, we accomplished it. Our expenses have been well-managed this year, and I am extraordinarily proud of all of us for those efforts. We need to continue along that path. We know it will be tough, but I’m confident we can get there.”
The most recent Town Meeting was a chance for BWHers to hear a state of the hospital address from Nabel and ask questions to senior leadership in attendance. Additional Town Meetings have taken place during night and weekend shifts.
Nabel updated attendees on the strategic planning efforts currently underway at Partners HealthCare and at BW/F. On the Partners HealthCare level, she said, teams consisting of more than 200 people system-wide have developed
recommendations for the care redesign and patient affordability areas, and have presented them to senior leadership. Recommendations in both areas have been vetted, and the teams are now starting to build business plans to carry them forward.
At BW/F, strategic planning efforts have focused on Patient Affordability, which is led by steering committee chairs Mairead Hickey, PhD, RN, FAHA, chief operating officer and executive vice president, and Michael Reney, MBA, senior vice president and chief financial officer. “Our strategic planning efforts are intended to guide us to a new way of thinking,” Nabel said. “This is not a ‘project,’ but a shift in our way of mindset. We must always be looking at ways to do things better, more efficiently and at the lowest possible cost.”
During the first phase of the strategic planning process, BWH has been working with content experts from a health care performance improvement organization. “Together we’ve done an assessment, and have worked to develop a list of recommendations that we are now considering implementing,” Nabel said.
“One of our findings from the assessment phase was that we’re good at problem-solving, but that we seldom ask ourselves to engage in continuous process improvement,” Nabel added. “We need to think about being good stewards of our resources, and not over-using or over-doing, but being very mindful of how we do things.”
Following the state of the hospital address, Nabel turned the microphones to the audience for a question and answer session. Question topics ranged from advancement policies at BWH to graduate medical education funding. Those attending the meeting via webcast were encouraged to submit their questions online.
Watch the video here >>