November 15,2018-
Visalia’s Kaweah Delta and Porterville’s Sierra View hospitals are expected to approve a new Joint Powers Authority at their separate November 27 board meetings.Called the Central Valley Healthcare Alliance, the regional entity could be launched in the first few months of the new year says Kaweah Delta CEO Gary Herbst.
“We are looking to share resources, combine some services, save time and money but still remain independent.” Herbst says the idea would be to merge their combined volume that could lead to lower costs of purchased goods & services, particularly pharmaceuticals. ”After labor, drugs are our top expense”
“This collaboration is the future of healthcare” suggests Herbst. ”Hospitals are needing to become more efficient and create an economy of scale by working together” he reasons.
There are some duplicate departments that could be merged he adds, noting the two public hospitals have been talking about the idea for 6 months.
“It’s more than just cutting costs” explains Herbst.” It’s moving to model where you don’t just care for the sick and injured but entire populations to try keep them healthy.” And out of the hospital if possible.
Case in point is an existing contract Kaweah has with the health plan Humana – an HMO for Medicare patients who live in Kings and Tulare counties. The new JPA will allow Sierra View to join with Kaweah, a move that could help boost membership in the HMO. Herbst says that would benefit both the healthcare providers and Medicare patients because benefits are better, he claims.
According to a presentation by Kaweah Delta, Medicare enrollees number about 82,000 in Tulare and Kings counties but there are only 14,000 Humana Medicare Advantage members enrolled in the two-county area. Medicare covers the elderly population no matter their income. There are 1300 Humana members in Porterville but Sierra View under the JPA could seek to boost that membership in their area.
Both hospitals cover the much larger MediCal population in Tulare County the covers the poor, the largest portion of the population here numbering 328,000 in Tulare/Kings.
Tulare County has the largest MediCal population in the state says Herbst.
The JPA also includes physician groups in Tulare County who help implement good primary care that helps keep the patient from visiting a hospital unnecessarily when they can bee seen in a clinic setting before the problem gets acute.
As to whether Tulare’s new Adventist hospital will be part of this in the future, Herbst notes that Adventist hospitals are not public although they are non-profit.He adds that Adventist(Hanford) and Kaweah do share some mutually beneficial supply management programs.
Herbst says the reopening off Tulare’s emergency department saw some 70 patients who might have visited KD’s Urgent Care if Tulare had not reopened.
Other benefits seen by implementing the JPA include:
-Both entities can help fund countywide initiatives
-Physician and bed needs assessment
-Community health improvement initiatives
-Greater access to local, state & federal resources and funds
-Attract and retain physicians for the community
– Improve patient access across the continuum of care
– Create and utilize clinical best practices
-Keep care in the community
– Create a high-performing value network
-Access more of the premium dollar
– Effectively manage risk