Georgia Hospital Association CMO Doug Patten says soaring health care costs must be brought under control

ALBANY — Dr. Doug Patten, the Georgia Hospital Association’s chief medical officer, says Obamacare is garnering all the headlines, but health care reform is needed in regard to costs and the overall health of Americans.

Reform is coming he said, and it’s coming fast.

“The health care environment is changing rapidly. All the conversation is focusing on the Affordable Care Act being imposed by the payers and providers by the things that are embedded in the ACA,” Patten said during a speech Thursday at Albany Rotary Club. “Well, there is a reason all of those things are in there. And regardless of who loves them or hates them, there is a reason why we have to change things in health care. But it’s never had to occur at such a rapid rate.”

Patten said that while advances in health care have been dramatic, costs have soared, but overall health has remained basically static.

“We have moved into an area where hospital care has gotten very complex. The roles of the providers has changed. Back in the 30s and 40s where is a doctor was taking care of you in the hospital there were just a handful of diseases he could do something about,” Patten said. “Now technology is driving change. It’s putting information in the hands of care providers that we had no way of retrieving before, along with the ability to perform procedures. In 1986 a simple gallbladder removal required a seven-day hospital stay. That has changed. Ten years ago a patient came in for a procedure at 8 and was home by 11 for the same operation.

“But costs are what’s driving the conversation and they’ve gotten out of control. When we talk about the cost of health care we have to ask ourselves if we are getting true value. The overall health status in this country has not dramatically improved in relation to costs — We’re not spending the money on the things we need to be spending the money on.”

Patten added that the industry is moving towards the personalization of health care and will be doing it in the scope of population health management.

“If we don’t start managing the populations’ health more effectively we’ll continue to be on that path where the rest of the world will be just as healthy as us, but we’ll just continue to spend twice as much money as they are doing it,” he said.

Partnerships and cooperative ventures, Patten says, are the wave of the future.

“So we have to do somethings differently. We are assembling groups to look at that and we are developing cooperative ventures with the department of public health like we’ve never done before. the GHA is partnering with the Medical Association of Georgia like never before. That just hasn’t happened in the past,” Patten said. ” We are going to see things change. What does this mean for you? Most of you are in business here in southwest Georgia and it is in your vested interest from a pure economic development perspective to jump into this debate, to jump into this effort so you can help people collaborate around the health of your neighbors.”

“We can’t walk away from it any more and say it’s a free market problem, because 50 years of free market solutions have gotten us to the point were we are spending twice as much and getting nothing for it.”