Back in 2009, I set forth an agenda for the then-incoming CEO of Partners Healthcare System, suggesting:
If there is any organization in the state that has the potential to demonstrate the potential for an integrated health care delivery system, it is PHS. But, it will come as no surprise to participants in that system that this has not yet happened. The long-standing rivalry between the two flagship hospitals has meant that rationalization of tertiary and quaternary clinical service between the Brigham and the MGH has often been deferred. Previous Partners CEOs have focused their efforts on integration of back-office and other business aspects of the system, leaving clinical integration essentially untouched. Gary will face an interesting and important choice as to how and if he will address this unachieved potential benefit to the region. If the Partners system first sets an internal example, it might then be possible to achieve a broader rationalization of care in cooperation with the other academic medical centers (BIDMC, Boston Medical Center, and Tufts). We all need to garner these economies to control costs in the over-served Boston marketplace.
Well that didn't happen. Here we are six years later, and the same themes remain. Joan Vennochi at the Boston Globe notes:
Partners needs a new business plan, one that emphasizes its core mission to provide great medical care, instead of market dominance through mergers with other hospitals. And provable cost control is essential for what is now the most expensive health care network in Massachusetts. The future must be focused on better, not bigger.
Partners never merged hospital assets; instead, between the Brigham and the General, it created two giant, co-existing hospital systems which still compete with each other. A much-cited New York Times editorial, written when critics of the deal first came forward, suggested the state should never have signed onto the merger that created Partners in the first place. Today, knowledgeable observers believe neither hospital would be sad to cut the ties that bind them. Indeed, especially within Mass. General, there was extensive internal opposition to the merger deal with South Shore Hospital and the spending caps that were part of it.
Unraveling Partners seems unlikely. That means the next leader will have to figure out a way to get these two institutions on the same page when it comes to corporate mission.
If there is any organization in the state that has the potential to demonstrate the potential for an integrated health care delivery system, it is PHS. But, it will come as no surprise to participants in that system that this has not yet happened. The long-standing rivalry between the two flagship hospitals has meant that rationalization of tertiary and quaternary clinical service between the Brigham and the MGH has often been deferred. Previous Partners CEOs have focused their efforts on integration of back-office and other business aspects of the system, leaving clinical integration essentially untouched. Gary will face an interesting and important choice as to how and if he will address this unachieved potential benefit to the region. If the Partners system first sets an internal example, it might then be possible to achieve a broader rationalization of care in cooperation with the other academic medical centers (BIDMC, Boston Medical Center, and Tufts). We all need to garner these economies to control costs in the over-served Boston marketplace.
Well that didn't happen. Here we are six years later, and the same themes remain. Joan Vennochi at the Boston Globe notes:
Partners needs a new business plan, one that emphasizes its core mission to provide great medical care, instead of market dominance through mergers with other hospitals. And provable cost control is essential for what is now the most expensive health care network in Massachusetts. The future must be focused on better, not bigger.
Partners never merged hospital assets; instead, between the Brigham and the General, it created two giant, co-existing hospital systems which still compete with each other. A much-cited New York Times editorial, written when critics of the deal first came forward, suggested the state should never have signed onto the merger that created Partners in the first place. Today, knowledgeable observers believe neither hospital would be sad to cut the ties that bind them. Indeed, especially within Mass. General, there was extensive internal opposition to the merger deal with South Shore Hospital and the spending caps that were part of it.
Unraveling Partners seems unlikely. That means the next leader will have to figure out a way to get these two institutions on the same page when it comes to corporate mission.