2016 Letter from the CEO: Facing the Headwinds of Health Care Reform

Since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in 2010, the winds of change have moved from a gentle breeze to strong headwinds. Beacon Health System has a growing array of new value-based reimbursement contracts that are pressure-testing our care coordination and cost containment systems. Our talented Associates are providing increasingly higher levels of quality care with modest growth in volumes, and much less reimbursement.

These new risk-based arrangements require us to standardize our clinical processes, reduce variation, and ensure that we offer the same high-quality care and experience across many different sites of care. In many ways we’ve been preparing for this for a long time. As a leader at the front edge of Innovation for decades, we are more ready than many health care organizations to quickly and resourcefully embrace this new challenge.

Supporting our clinical care coordination and alignment, the kickoff of a project called Operation Janus, demonstrates a significant investment in our information technology (IT) infrastructure. Our outstanding clinicians need a much more reliable and effective electronic patient record, while patients and customers are looking for more easily accessible information about their health. Focus on and investment in IT systems over the next several years will continue.

During 2015, we broke ground on the new home for Memorial Children’s Hospital, a $48.5 million effort supported by Beacon’s ongoing $12.5 million fundraising campaign, Shine. This is crucial to serving thousands of children and their families in a 14-county region. We broke ground on a new Beacon Medical Group practice site that will open at Bendix and Cleveland roads, as well as a new Beacon Health & Fitness Center in Granger. Finally, on January 6, 2016, we expanded Elkhart General Hospital with the opening of a new $83 million surgery tower project, with advanced technology surgery suites and all private rooms. Our progress in 2015 was commendable, yet going forward we still face strong headwinds.

In light of the challenges ahead, it is an unbelievably exciting time in health care. Over the next few years, we have an unprecedented opportunity to lead our industry and transform the very foundation of how health is nurtured and care is delivered. We will need to embrace not only a new way of thinking in the day-to-day delivery of care, but also how we define success for our future.

2016 is going to be a year of alignment and performance. The most effective way to do this is to standardize what we do and how we do it, fully align the customer experience, and enhance work and life for Beacon Associates.

We should be deliberate in all we do. Just because something is comfortable or familiar is just not good enough any more. We need to recognize, and scale what we’re doing well, and learn to let go of the things that aren’t working. We need to deliver the highest standard of care with consistency and efficiency. This is what our community demands, and what we all deserve.

Please take a close look at the following information. It outlines the five Strategic Imperatives identified by your Beacon leadership team as the things we absolutely need to do in 2016 to succeed.

I look forward to seeing what comes next. The future will look much different than the past, and success will be measured much differently. In the end, our hard work and effort is going to lead to an even better world of health and well-being, and I’m glad we are on this journey together.