Porter Hospital

(From our most recent 2011 Annual Report to the Community)

2011 Report to Our Community
James L. Daily, President
Porter Medical Center, Inc.

PORTER HOSPITAL

Change Is In The Air

Healthcare reform has arrived. With the passage of Act 48, the Vermont Legislature put its imprint on the transformation that hospitals, physicians and other healthcare service providers are beginning to experience. With the creation of the Green Mountain Care Board, with its wide-ranging authority over hospital budgets, the Certificate of Need process and every major element of “reforming” our health care delivery and payment system, we are in the midst of change on almost every level of how we serve the needs of our Addison County community.

Passage of the federal health care reform law has also set in motion a series of changes, most having to do with insurance reform, but the law also lays out a timeframe and definition for the establishment of a “common benefit package” and “health care exchanges” that will have significant implications on the work we are doing. What the common benefit package will include and how health care exchanges will actually function here in Vermont are still undefined. This, along with “bending the cost curve” for health care expenditures, will be the real heavy lifting of health care reform.

This transformation already has reached our organization in the form of a new Electronic Health Information System being implemented in stages throughout our hospital and network of physician practices. Helen Porter Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center (HPHRC) was a statewide leader in the implementation of a new electronic medical record system, and now Porter Hospital is in the midst of what is clearly the most complicated and challenging project in its history.

Senator Patrick Leahy recognizes Middlebury Family Health for their implementation of a new Health Information System and being the first Vermont practice to attain federal “Meaningful Use” designation. Drs.. Eileen Fuller and Dayle Klitzner are pictured with Senator Leahy.

The “Vermont Blueprint for Health” defines a series of changes required for physician practices to attain certification as an “Advanced Primary Care Practice”, as well as for communities to establish Community Health Teams. These changes will support new initiatives designed to assist individual patients with chronic conditions improve their health, and reduce overall health care expenses over the long-term. Vermont is one of eight states accepted as part of a national Multi-Payer Advanced Primary Care Demonstration Program, which will add more resources to expand the Blueprint program. Porter Hospital is the lead agency for the Addison County region for Blueprint activities, and we have made tremendous progress in 2011 to attain the required certification by the National Committee for Quality Assurance for most of our physician practices and have started to create our local Community Health Team. By the end of 2012, every Porter Hospital physician practice will have a new health information system including an electronic medical record for every patient.

Of course, beyond all of these reform-related activities we need to run a hospital, physician practice network and HPHRC. In other words, we have to keep flying this airplane while we are redesigning it…and we are.

With the introduction of the new “Hospitalist Program” in 2011, we have established a new model for providing the highest level of quality patient care for our hospital inpatients that focuses on better coordination and communication and has been well received by our patients, medical staff and nursing staff. The Porter program is similar to programs throughout Vermont and the United States, which involve hiring specialized physicians who focus exclusively on caring for hospitalized patients. More information about this program is contained later in this report.

At Helen Porter, the ongoing “Culture Change” initiative resulted in the introduction of a new Namaste Program and creation of our first Respite Room in collaboration with Addison Respite Care Home (ARCH). In the next section of this report, we describe each of these new programs and why they are vital additions to our organization. We also celebrated the opening of our new neighbor, Eastview Retirement Community, and anticipate that this project will be 100% complete by the summer of 2012. We envision opportunities to collaborate with the leadership of Eastview to improve the continuum of care for our elderly neighbors and are excited to have them on our campus.

Throughout this Annual Report to the Community, we have tried to provide you with a summary of these and other initiatives, challenges, opportunities and changes that have set Porter Medical Center on a path that will result in fundamental transformations that will impact every corner of our organization. We are proud to do this, as we are proud of the work we are doing and grateful to the people of this region who trust Porter Medical Center to serve their medical needs, as well as support our organization in so many other ways.

On a personal note, I was asked and accepted the responsibility of board chair of the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. Although this is a major commitment, I feel that taking an active role in ensuring that hospitals demonstrate strong leadership in this critical time of health care reform is essential and I look forward to working with my fellow hospital CEO’s to represent the perspective of providers as our state moves forward with health care reform activities.

In closing, I wish to dedicate this 2011 Annual Report to the memory of a very special and important member of the Porter Medical Center family. We said goodbye to Dr. Robert LaFiandra during 2011, and we are still feeling the loss of our colleague, friend and community leader. His service to his patients was paramount, his love of his family was inspirational, and his devotion to Porter was unwavering. He touched us, challenged us, cared for us and inspired us to aspire to excellence without sacrificing compassion—we will miss him and we are better because of him.

Sincerely,
James L. Daily
President