Metro Detroit also is likely to see more hospital closings, as health chiefs examine the best ways to deliver and improve primary care in non-hospital settings, the group told the Pancakes & Politics forum hosted by the Michigan Chronicle at the Detroit Athletic Club.
"We have an opportunity to reshape ourselves," Patricia Maryland, CEO and president of the St. John Providence Health System told the forum. Southeast Michigan has 3,000 excess hospital beds, she said, in part because of population losses in the region.
St. John has closed two of its Detroit hospitals in the last decade, which are now converted to other health and community needs, and is looking at the best ways to use two facilities in Madison Heights and Harrison Twp.
The Henry Ford Health System also has closed facilities and is redefining services at several of its facilities, tough decisions given strong local resistance that can occur when a hospital is closed or downsized.
"The mayor of Trenton still doesn't talk to me," said Nancy Schlichting, president and CEO of the Ford system, which closed its Riverside hospital in that city.
Mike Duggan, CEO and president of the Detroit Medical Center, urged more work to eliminate inappropriate use of emergency room care. "Nothing's going to change," if people continue to use emergency rooms for primary care, Duggan said.
Schlichting said hospitals are working with the Detroit Wayne County Health Authority, a local health access and coordination agency, to improve hospital referrals to community health centers; creation of a network of physicians who agree to see uninsured and under-insured patients who need to see specialists; and expansion of the number of community health centers in Detroit and Wayne County by applying for new federal money that pay for the centers.
In other comments, Schlichting called the pending sale of the DMC to Vanguard Health Systems, a for-profit Nashville firm, "the right thing for Detroit and the right thing for the DMC."
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Will Federal Health Reform Encourage Greater Cooperation Between Hospitals?Originally from: http://www.nursinglink.monster.com/news/articles/14039-will-federal-health-reform-encourage-greater-cooperation-between-hospitals
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