Cleveland Clinic President and CEO Delos "Toby" Cosgrove, MD, said during his annual State of the Clinic address that 2016 was a "very successful year" for the clinic despite the "unprecedented" challenges facing the national healthcare system.
Dr. Cosgrove delivered the address Wednesday morning to hospital staff at the Cleveland Clinic's main campus.
Here are seven takeaways from the speech.
1. Dr. Cosgrove cited a variety of challenges facing Cleveland Clinic and the U.S. healthcare system at large, including the rising cost of prescription drugs, a larger patient population receiving government insurance, an increasing number of regulatory and reporting requirements and changes to how hospitals are paid. Despite this, he said the clinic saw a rise in new patients and a decline in hospital readmissions (decreased to 13.2 percent) and infections (average of 16 infections per month).
2. Other achievements include the opening of a new hospital in Avon, Ohio, and six new Express Care facilities throughout northeast Ohio; a 12 percent increase in operating revenue to $8 billion; and being ranked the No. 2 hospital in the U.S. by US News & World Report.
3. The Cleveland Clinic was also able to expand access to care, according to Dr. Cosgrove. As a result of the opening of the six new Express Care facilities, visit volume increase 76 percent to 133,000. Same-day appointments at the Cleveland Clinic increased 10 percent to 1.3 million, and the system provided 9,700 virtual visits. Outpatient visits increased 7 percent to 7.1 million, including 128,000 new patients.
4. An enterprisewide cost transformation initiative yielded more than $634 million in cost savings. Dr. Cosgrove said without the cost savings, operating income would have dropped from $243 million to $122 million.
5. Cleveland Clinic is the largest employer in Ohio with 48,000 of the system's 51,487 total employees working in the state.
6. The clinic has planned or begun construction on several new healthcare facilities, including Cleveland Clinic London; the Health Education Campus (in collaboration with Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland); a new emergency department at Cleveland Clinic Akron (Ohio); the Lakewood (Ohio) Family Health facility; the Cleveland Clinic Rehabilitation Hospitals in Beachwood and Bath, Ohio; and a new patient tower at Cleveland Clinic Florida in Weston.
7. After the formal address, Dr. Cosgrove brought up the criticism he and the Cleveland Clinic has faced regarding his ties to President Donald Trump in the aftermath of the executive order on travel and immigration, which barred a Sudanese Cleveland Clinic physician from reentering the U.S. until Feb. 7. Dr. Cosgrove said he told the president he disapproved of the order and that it was implemented poorly, and that the Trump administration seemed to concede, according to STAT.