Maria Ryan, PhD, serves as Chief Executive Officer for Cottage Hospital.
On April 11th, Dr. Ryan will speak on a panel at Becker's Hospital Review 9th Annual Meeting. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place April 11-14, 2018 in Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and Dr. Ryan's session, click here.
Question: Who or what are the disruptors that have your attention and why?
Dr. Maria Ryan: Jonathan Bush, CEO, Athenahealth. Jonathan Bush, Watertown, Massachusetts – Jonathan’s mission to disrupt healthcare by providing efficient, practical solutions to information technology is admirable. If you ask any provider about their barrier to providing good healthcare, nine out of 10 times they’ll tell you it’s the computer. It’s hard to fathom why there are no practical solutions in this arena. Athena is combining such solutions for ease of use along with a business model designed to help small hospitals maximize reimbursement. As a provider, I want to see a story. I don’t want to have to click and search for information. In the inpatient world, we want to be able to see in an uncomplicated way what the nurse is seeing-how did the patient react to the new medication? How is the patient responding to treatments? What did the physical therapist do for therapy-how did the patient respond-what are the goals?, Is the patient taking in enough fluids? What does the registered dietician recommend? What exam did the specialist do-what is the plan? Every aspect needs to be viewed easily and in a way that makes sense.
Nick Vailas, CEO, Bedford Ambulatory Surgical Center, Entepreneur, Founder of Compass. Nick Vailas, Manchester, New Hampshire – Nick Vailas has had a lifelong quest to provide good healthcare in a low cost structure. One of his surgery centers was the first in the country to do outpatient total joint replacement. There’s a subset of patients who can do very well in this setting and it is often significantly lower cost than in a hospital. Well before the term price transparency was vogue, Nick developed Compass, a tool that allowed consumers or employers to search for low cost alternatives. Anthem NH used this tool to market to employers who were frustrated with the growing cost of healthcare. The City of Manchester, NH, and the State of New Hampshire utilized this tool and saved millions of dollars. Nick was so confident with Compass, he would not take any money for the tool unless the city and the state saved money. Currently, he has started a new program called Member Medical. It was borne out of a growing concern of the high deductibles American families face. The program he developed is affordable urgent care membership made easy. It could cost as low as $10 a month, which includes five urgent care visits a year. Also embedded in Member Medical is a care concierge component to help the user navigate the healthcare world to find lower cost providers for specialty services like orthopedics, gastroenterology and diagnostic imaging. This program can be purchased by an individual or by an employer for its employees. Member Medical is contracted with Express Med and Clear Choice MD in New Hampshire.
Amazon is something to watch as a disruptor in the healthcare realm. They started shakily in this area, but it appears they are going to focus on medical equipment. It is mind-boggling how much money a hospital or clinic has to pay for basic instruments to provide care. There is a cost for research and innovation, but some of the price tags simply do not make sense. Remember the military procurement scandal in the early 1980s—immortalized by the $435 claw hammer, the $640 toilet seat and $7,600 coffee makers, $1,118.26 for a spare plastic cap for a navigator’s stool on a B-52 bomber (worth about two cents). The healthcare industry definitely needs a disruptor in this space.
Cottage Hospital, located in rural northern New Hampshire, has been a proud leader in high quality and low cost services. Through innovative partnerships, Cottage been named the hospital of choice for total knee and total hip replacements, labs and ambulatory surgery for the State’s employees and retirees, as well as the public sector insurer, HealthTrust, that covers an additional 70,000 patients. The high quality, low cost model at Cottage allows private employers to save millions on their claims and the incentive programs are a win for their employees and families.
Q: Describe one of your best colleagues. What is it that person does/brings that makes them indispensable to your organization?
MR: I strategically look for different talents within my senior team. I could speak about each and every one of them, but I want to highlight Karen Woods. Karen started as a Radiology tech, was promoted to Department Director and now functions as Administrative Director, which is similar to a Chief Operating Officer. Karen’s talents include thoughtfulness, good listening skills, and the foresight to take the time to get feedback and to seek information. I started giving Karen minor projects when I first promoted her. Each time, she impressed me with the way she handled herself. Recently, Karen supervised two multi-million-dollar building projects for the hospital—Rowe Health Center, which is our primary care/rural health center, and Ray of Hope, our behavioral medicine unit. Karen is currently overseeing our EMR transition project. She is an owner in every sense of the word and is always looking for the most economical and straightforward methods for providing the best care to our patients.
Q: How do you see the barrier between competitors and collaborators changing?
MR: For one, no healthcare agency can be all things to all people. It doesn’t make financial and practical sense to compete with every duplicate service you provide, so there are definite advantages to collaborating with your competitors. To achieve business success, you need to constantly evaluate your product, update if needed or develop new products and services. In order to stay in lockstep with the ever-changing marketplace, collaboration can save time and money. With collaboration, the sharing of ideas, data, innovation and a talent pool can achieve a winning strategy, which is why Cottage Hospital does not look at other healthcare agencies in a competitive way. Cottage Hospital and 17 other health care agencies formed an LLC called New England Alliance for Healthcare in which we belong to a group purchasing organization which drives down costs. We have other value added benefits for collaboration with Quality and cost savings. Cottage Hospital has strategic partnerships with health insurance companies, medium to large size employers and other hospitals. Cottage Hospital is located in Woodsville, NH and serves 26 towns between New Hampshire and Vermont.