Partners Healthcare

This morning, The Boston Globe and Boston Herald both addressed a new proposal drafted by Attorney General Martha Coakley that, as the Globe described, would “regulate hospitals and doctors and the prices they are paid to care for patients.” In fact, the editorial page of the Boston Herald stated that this proposal is “an unprecedented level of government intrusion in the employer-insurer-provider relationship.”

We agree with this assessment, and we think this approach ignores what is actually taking place in the marketplace and threatens to stifle the many innovations that providers, insurers and businesses are putting into place to control health care costs. In just the past year, Partners, along with other providers and insurers alike, have moved at lightning speed to address the cost issue.

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A former executive with the American Diabetes Association, Richard Kahn, MD, recently came under fire for his comments about the value of weight loss in managing diabetes. He said that even though weight loss can prevent or delay the onset of diabetes, the fact that patients fail to maintain their weight loss beyond an average of four years makes diabetes prevention programs a “waste of resources.” He further stated that the health care system should focus instead on reducing complications once patients are diagnosed with diabetes.

We disagree.

Diabetes is a chronic illness that affects more than 20 million adults and children in the United States – and this number is growing rapidly. Left untreated, over time, diabetes can lead to serious health complications. However, diabetes can often be managed with proper diet and exercise.

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An article in the Boston Globe offers an informative view on the important but changing role of the primary care physician in the doctor-patient relationship. The article references efforts already underway at Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s Hospital and points to Partners HealthCare’s adoption of a team-based approach to patient care as a catalyst for physicians’ increased ability to accept new patients while providing more efficient and affordable care.

“The shift is an example of how widespread efforts to control medical costs and improve the coordination and quality of care are trickling down to individual doctors and their patients,” the Globe’s Liz Kowalczyk writes.

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Partners HealthCare is committed to the overall health of our communities. Staying healthy is about making healthy choices and taking small steps every day.

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At Partners HealthCare, we’re constantly looking for ways to use technology to improve the patient experience. Systems like electronic medical records and patient portals make it easier for us to efficiently deliver uniform high-quality care to our patients.

Patient portals are online tools that give patients an opportunity to interact with their physician’s office and access important information from their medical record. No longer do patients have to play “phone tag” with their doctor’s office to get lab results; they can simply go online and get those results for themselves. And for those helping to coordinate care for a child or an elderly parent, a patient portal can link their online account to that family member’s doctor and allow them to better manage their family’s care. We believe that the widespread adoption of patient portals will streamline care for both doctors and their patients, providing a convenient way for patients to better understand and manage their health.

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Here on Connect with Partners, we often discuss the various efforts that Partners HealthCare and the rest of the marketplace are making to help slow the growth in health care costs. Today, Martha Bebinger of WBUR conducted a wide-ranging and insightful conversation with four of the region’s leading health care experts in an attempt to take stock of how the market is doing. The piece – “As Health Costs Rise More Slowly, How Low Can We Go?” – weighs the various innovations taking place in the Massachusetts marketplace and their impact on health costs over the long term.

Stuart Altman, a Brandeis University professor and nationally known health care expert, pointed in particular to some of the efforts underway at Partners. Altman states, “Partners has done some amazing things to lower costs.”

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Last week, The New York Times reported on the Obama Administration’s push to disclose payments that doctors receive from drug makers and medical device companies. And this past Saturday, The Boston Globe weighed in with an editorial in favor of this new federal disclosure plan as well. At Partners HealthCare, we support this level of transparency. The relationship between the academic medical community and the medical industry is fundamentally important for translating scientific advances into patient care improvements. However, this relationship must be managed in a way that assures and preserves the actual – and perceived – integrity of our research, education and patient-care activities.

In 2009, Partners introduced a sweeping set of recommendations to ensure the ongoing integrity of our relationship with the medical industry while earning the public’s confidence. Our policies now prohibit certain types of activities, such as participation in speakers bureaus or ghost-writing articles on behalf of the industry. These policies also impose more oversight on the outside activities of our senior institutional officials, as well as on industry-funded educational programs, to ensure that these relationships are managed appropriately. At the same time, they encourage and recognize the importance of maintaining our decades-long tradition of medical innovation through scientific partnerships with industry.

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Here on Connect with Partners, we often highlight how the health care marketplace is working to address rising costs. In last night’s State of the State address (read the full transcript here), Governor Deval Patrick applauded these efforts, declaring, “The market is moving in the right direction and that’s very good news.”

To emphasize this point, the Governor highlighted the reopening of contracts by hospitals and insurers to accept lower rates, evidenced by Partners HealthCare’s new contracts with Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Tufts Health Plan. Today’s Boston Globe provides further evidence supporting the Governor’s stance, as Children’s Hospital Boston and Blue Cross Blue Shield just announced a similar agreement to curb health care costs.

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At a time when health care costs are an increasing concern for patients and their families and are squeezing budgets for cities and towns, it is critical for providers and insurers to work together to find solutions. Partners HealthCare is taking yet another step in that direction, announcing a renegotiation with Tufts Health Plan. By ripping up the last two years of our previous agreement with Tufts, we are able to offer patients across Massachusetts more than $105 million in savings over the next four years. Combined with a similar announcement last fall, total savings to be passed back to consumers stands at $345 million over the next four years.

Beyond the cost savings, however, this program is important because it is an opportunity for Partners HealthCare to pursue our mission of providing high-quality care. As part of the agreement, Partners will enter into Tufts’ Coordinated Care Model (CCM), which means that it will be our responsibility to meet or exceed quality measures while keeping cost-growth lower than the average of the rest of the Tufts Health Plan provider network. Through our partnership with Tufts, we will be able provide coordinated, high-quality care at more affordable rates.

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