Riverside County supervisors heard suggestions Monday from a health care consulting firm on a new direction for the county’s regional medical center and voted to begin talks with the consultant on implementing that strategic plan.
The board previously hired Huron Consulting to conduct a thorough review of the county’s health and mental health delivery systems.
The board asked Huron for a review of the county hospital’s finances and for recommendations on how the facility could prepare for the national Affordable Care Act, which goes into effect Jan. 1.
The company found that the hospital was an “undervalued asset,” but with room for improvement in several key areas.
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“As we continue to look at the enterprise, we’re trying to create that connective tissue; that’s really what the strategy is,” said Jim Agnew, managing director in Chicago-based Huron Consulting’s health care practice. “How can the departments work together more efficiently and work together to combat what’s coming?”
Representatives of Huron stressed the need to develop partnerships with community health leaders such as the UC Riverside School of Medicine and Loma Linda University Medical Center and payment organizations, including the Inland Empire Health Plan, adding that the possibilities of alliances with other health entities would increase as the county addresses its challenges.
“The county, the medical center, the health departments do not exist within an island; you have to realize everything going on in and around you in a competitive marketplace today,” Agnew said.
But they also focused on fixing internal operations, suggesting creating a patient satisfaction experience plan, bold leadership, using data and metrics — including a systematic quarterly report card to leadership — aligning different departments within the county health system more closely together, strengthening the information technology infrastructure, and clinical transformation to become more patient-centric.
Date: Sep. 23, 2013