What Will 2012 Bring?

By Matthew Weinstock	December 22, 2011
We polled a few experts for their predictions about what will top the health care agenda in 2012.

? As we head into the holiday break, the editors and staff at H&HN Daily would like to say "Thanks." We launched Daily back in February and since then our subscriber base as continued to grow and the feedback from you, the readers, has been tremendous. Daily has become an integral part of the H&HN brand. We are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead and we have some exciting things planned for 2012:

• On Jan. 4, we'll introduce a new monthly column, "ICD-10 In Real Time." In partnership with the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, three leading CIOs will share their experiences of getting their institutions ready for the mammoth transition to ICD-10. The column will appear on the first Wednesday of every month.
• Our series on cost containment strategies ? Fiscal Fitness ? will continue to build. Podcasts and blogs will provide in-depth analysis on how hospitals are taking inefficiencies out of the system.
• There will be even more integration between H&HNDaily and the print magazine. For instance, web-extra podcasts with people profiled in the magazine's Interview and Extra Mile departments.

Before we sign off for the year though, we thought it would be interesting to know what some of the field's top thinkers are predicting for 2012. I polled a few earlier this week and here's what they had to say:

Rick Pollack, Executive Vice President, Advocacy and Public Policy, the American Hospital Association. "In so many respects it is hard to determine what next year will look like until we finish this year," Pollack, a long-time veteran of the Beltway, said. The current showdown over the tax bill has implications for the 2012 agenda. Depending on what happens in the next few days, issues such as the physician fee schedule and Medicare extenders could resurface in early 2012.

Pollack predicts that we'll continue to hear debate about deficit reduction, given the congressional super committee's failure to reach a deal. The hot topic will be whether or not to unwind sequestration, which calls for across the board budget cuts. Congress could, instead, opt to alter sequestration and do programmatic reductions. "There will be a lot of activity on this," Pollack said.

Third, he noted continued implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The focus here will be on the insurance exchanges and how they are designed. All eyes will also be on the Supreme Court as it rules on the law's constitutionality. Pollack also predicted that lawmakers will try to address the problem surround drug shortages.

Then, of course, we have the election. And as the president and other position themselves for what is sure to be a heated campaign, well, no one can predict how that will influence the debate.

Helen Darling, President and CEO, National Business Group on Health. "For employers, in 2012, their biggest challenges are talent acquisition, retention and management. As part of their talent strategy, they are seriously challenged to provide comprehensive health benefits at an affordable and controllable cost. Unfortunately, they now know that employees and dependents are not as healthy as they used to be and even younger workers are joining the work force with significantly more risk factors ( e.g. obesity and related conditions) than in the prior 30 years," Darling said. She noted that during the weak economy, when wages remained flat or went down, the "affordability gap" between health care costs and take home pay has widened.

"Employers are also increasingly moving from positive financial incentives for employees and adult dependents to take steps to improve their health and reduce risk factors to incentives that are more like penalties, such as having to pay more for smoking or lose access to the best plan if not actively working on improving health," she said.

Employers will also face growing administrative burdens due to the ACA, she said. But she also noted that the law will provide health insurance for retirees, people eligible for COBRA, seasonal and part time workers. "For some employers, especially small employers, the option to obtain coverage through exchanges may be a better choice for all concerned. Like so many things in public policy, the details matter," she said, adding, "2012 could be a good year for employers if the economy begins to turn around and starts growing again. If so, some of the financial pressures will lessen. If not, especially if health care cost increases continue at the predicted 7.2 percent, we will watch our standard of living decline and consumers will have even higher out of pocket costs."

Marty Fattig, CEO, Nemaha County Hospital. "As we enter into 2012, we are focused on many of the same things as most small rural hospitals," says Fattig, head of the 20-bed critical access hospital in Auburn, Neb. "Such things as meaningful use, decreased reimbursement, how Congress will deal with deficit reduction are on our radar screen. If we focus on what someone else might do to us though, we forget that we are not victims. We have a choice in how our future plays out and we need to focus on those issues where we do have a choice."

Next year, Fattig says, his hospital will focus on improving community health."We want to evaluate ways we can work with the other healthcare providers in our community; including public health, home health, long term care, pharmacies, physicians, and others to keep the most vulnerable members of our community from becoming acutely ill."

That could mean placing home monitoring equipment in patients' homes "so that we can intervene before they need to visit the emergency department. Perhaps it means educational programs. In our opinion, these are all pretty simple but cost effective ways to reduce healthcare costs in our corner of the world," he says.

Fattig will also be focused on improving the health of the hospital staff. It's a three-pronged strategy: offering good health care benefits, embarking on a wellness program and helping staff "feel good about who they are."

Bill Crounse, M.D., Senior Director, Worldwide Health, Microsoft Corporation. Crounse actually made my job easier by doing his own blog about IT trends for 2012. But there's one thing he left out. "I didn't cover the continued rolling thunder of EMR and HIS implementations under the HITECH Act," he wrote me in an email. "I didn't mention this, because that is a 'given.' However, although I wouldn't discourage any organization from EMR/HIS implementations and upgrades, I am adamant that these solutions by themselves don't drive the most value. Yes, we must digitize health information. We are still behind many developed countries in that regard. But, the value comes from what we DO with digitized health information; in other words how we use that digitized information to improve organizational performance, engage with patients, improvehealthcare quality, cost, access, and satisfaction."

In the end, shouldn't that be everyone's goal: improve quality and satisfaction (both patient and staff) and reduce costs? At H&HN, we pledge in 2012 to deliver more solutions-oriented material to help you achieve those goals.

From the entire editorial H&HN editorial team: Happy holidays! We'll see you again in 2012.

Matthew Weinstock is senior editor of Hospitals & Health Networks. You can reach him at mweinstock@healthforum.com.

The opinions expressed by authors do not necessarily reflect the policy of Health Forum Inc. or the American Hospital Association.

in general. All comments will be reviewed by a moderator before being posted.

Please note: Your browser cookies must be enabled to leave comments and remember your login information. If you are having trouble posting a comment please enable your browser cookies or email us your comment at hhndaily@healthforum.com.

Source: http://www.hhnmag.com/hhnmag/HHNDaily/HHNDailyDisplay.dhtml?id=7090006572

exercise exercise bikes exercise equipment exercise routines