By Mark Keroack, Baystate Health CEO
I grew up in Springfield, in the hospitals that would one day become Baystate Health. On Saturday mornings, I sometimes accompanied my father, Dr. Alvin Keroack, on his rounds. I absorbed a bit of what he and my mother - a nurse at Springfield Hospital (now Baystate Medical Center) - had learned about healthcare and the human condition.
Like everyone else, I look back on those days as simpler times. In fact, life then was complicated, too. Many of the patients in my parents' care coped with the same stressors that challenge our families, friends, and neighbors today - factors that we now call, social determinants of health.
Poverty. Addiction. Violence. Aging. Chronic illness. The human experience remains pretty much constant. But healthcare has grown more complex. While 21st century healthcare enables us to live better and longer, it's often delivered in ways that can make it difficult to navigate.
At Baystate Health, we're shaping tomorrow's healthcare.
In my 20 years as a practicing physician, I saw the difference that compassionate, excellent care makes in a person's life. Today, the 12,000 people of Baystate Health are driving a transformation that will make that kind of difference for all of our patients, every day.
We are leveraging the scope and scale of a fully integrated health system to deliver care that is both coordinated and consistent - while forging impactful community-based partnerships to keep people healthy.
* Coordination: Baystate Health embraces our patients in a continuum of care that carries them from our community hospitals, to the tertiary services of Baystate Medical Center, to our home and hospice services and into the offices of 1,400 physicians throughout Western Massachusetts. They are treated by Baystate Health physicians who work as a team across all our hospitals, using research-driven, system-wide clinical protocols, with a common electronic health record that follows them wherever they go. In 2018, we'll continue to strengthen that infrastructure - making our care as seamless as possible;
* Comfort: Leading-edge care and patient comfort guide our facility design. In 2018, a new Emergency Department - twice the size of the current ED - will open at Baystate Wing Hospital. A new Pediatric Procedures Unit, combined with a relocated Sadowsky Center for Children, at Baystate Children's Hospital will streamline care for children receiving chemotherapy and specialty outpatient procedures - providing plenty of room for families as well as easy access to inpatient services. At Baystate Medical Center, a new cogeneration power plant is poised to produce reliable heat and electricity for up to 30 days, off the grid and will save $2.7 million in energy costs annually;
* Community: Baystate Health is deeply committed to treating illness and injury and equally committed to keeping our communities healthy. We continue our commitment to deliver coordinated care that is part of the Affordable Care Act with dozens of quality measures and a set budget for thousands of patients assigned to us in an Accountable Care Organization, or ACO. In 2018, we will continue to evolve our nationally recognized Accountable Care Organization for Medicare patients. We will launch a new ACO for MassHealth patients designed to improve efficiency and elevate health status through partnerships with social service agencies that focus on housing, transportation, nutrition and counseling around chronic disease. An active partner in our region's response to the opioid crisis, we will continue participation in three community task forces, launch a $650,000 research initiative funded by National Institute of Drug Abuse, and sustain partial hospital services, medication-assisted therapy, and our EMPOWER program for mothers and newborns affected by opioid use disorder.
[?] * Continuity: We are educating the next generation of physicians for Western Massachusetts. In 2018, we will welcome the second class of medical students at UMass Medical School-Baystate, our region's first-ever medical school campus. Leveraging the intellectual capital of Baystate Health's academic medical center - with opportunities for learning at community hospitals - our collaborations with area colleges support the education of nurses and allied health professionals using an innovative curriculum designed for strengthening knowledge in urban and rural health.
Quality and coordination of care fuels efficiency in healthcare.
Baystate Health is one of the commonwealth's lowest-cost healthcare providers and we operate some of the highest-quality programs and hospitals in Massachusetts and in the nation. The future of healthcare will emerge from the kind of innovation underway at Baystate Health, in collaboration with the people we serve.
In 2018, we look forward to partnering with you to deliver healthcare that makes a positive difference in your life and for everyone we are privileged to serve in Western Massachusetts.
Dr. Mark A. Keroack is president and CEO of Baystate Health. To learn more about Baystate Health, its services and programs, go online to baystatehealth.org.