AMGA leaders urge members to raise their voices

A record 1,600 large group practice leaders are attending the American Medical Group Association’s annual conference at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas March 2-4, and they were told Tuesday by their immediate past and current chairmen the organization’s profile in Washington has never been higher, but its voice needs to get louder.

Immediate past chairman, Ronald Kirkland, M.D., who chairs the board for the Jackson (Tenn.) Clinic Professional Association, noted how congressional staffers reached out to the AMGA while drafting the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, leading to the inclusion of an $18,000 subsidy for physicians who adopt information technology.

Kirkland told the AMGA members that they can pay their dues with that amount, and added that “if this doesn’t excite you, ask a doctor to check your pulse.”

The current chairman, Edward Brown chief executive officer of the West Des Moines-based Iowa Clinic, mentioned how the U.S. healthcare system was morphing into what AMGA members already are: fully integrated, organized systems of care.

Brown said that thee current economic crisis is not an impediment to changing the healthcare system, but an accelerant.

“The greater the challenge in healthcare, the greater the opportunity for AMGA to shape the solution,” Brown said, adding that if members don’t raise their voices, the vacuum will be filled by others whose interests and agenda are unsustainable.

Patient safety and healthcare improvement guru Donald Berwick, M.D., told attendees of the need to “disconnect volume from profit” in healthcare.

Berwick, president and CEO of the Institute for healthcare Improvement, cited statistics that show how the U.S.—despite spending nearly twice as much on healthcare as most industrialized countries—lags behind on most quality-of-care indicators.

He mentioned the Triple Aim initiative that IHI is mobilizing, which seeks to improve public health, improve the public’s healthcare experience and lower per capita healthcare costs.

What’s needed, Berwick said, was a formula that rewards healthcare systems for avoiding hospitalizations.

“Success for a hospital board is keeping beds full,” Berwick said. “Think of how bad an idea that is.”

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