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Mercy CEO shares with us his insights into health care

A Q-and-A at Rotary Club with hospital president, Tom Gessel
Gessel

When Tom Gessel, president and CEO of Mercy Regional Medical Center, visited the Rotary Club of Durango on Tuesday, he found no shortage of questions on everything from palliative care to electronic record keeping and the effect of the Affordable Care Act on hospitals.

Here is a summary of some of the questions he fielded:

Q: After the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act, some analysts said the biggest winner would be hospitals because they would be seeing fewer uninsured patients. Is that what’s happening at Mercy?

A: “Yes. And the more difficult answer is sort of. Out of the 18,000 patients we see each year, about 27 percent were considered uninsured. But because Colorado expanded Medicaid coverage – which covers about 50 percent of the cost of treatment – about 10 percent of our patients who weren’t covered before are eligible now, which leaves about 17 percent uninsured.

“But we’re seeing a growing population who signed up in public-health exchanges who are starting to look and act as if they are uninsured. They predominantly purchased high-deductible policies because they were shopping premiums where they could take advantage of the tax credits, not coverage or what they could afford to pay out-of-pocket. Some of them have deductibles of $6,000 per person or $12,000 per family, and only 11 percent hit the deductible last year, so the remaining 89 percent were out-of-pocket for every dollar spent on health care.”

Q: Word is, Mercy is getting a new electronic records system. Is is going to allow physicians and nurses to spend more time with patients and less time typing in information?

A: Mercy will be installing a new Epic Electronic Health Record software in November 2016 as part of the Centura Health network of 15 hospitals in Colorado. It will cost Centura $300 million, and Mercy’s share will be $30 million, he said. An Epic “light” version will be available to independent practitioners in the community at a discounted rate if they want to have record-keeping that’s compatible with Mercy’s system.

“People talk about best-of-breed systems,” Gessel said. “We’ll just be happy to not get the worst-of-breed system. It is supposed to be easier to use, but I don’t know if it will improve the day in the life of a clinician.

“All major hospitals in Colorado, not just Centura, will be using the same system, so if you have to be transferred to a hospital in Denver from Mercy, they’ll already have your records. This is the best system on the market today and probably for the next five years.”

Q: I hear Mercy is looking at expanding its palliative care program. What will you do?

A: In the U.S., we spend half of our lifetime’s worth of medical expenses in the last six months of our lives, Gessel said.

“This is something I’m passionate about, even though it doesn’t help the bottom line. We’ll be breaking ground on our new hospice home in the spring.

“Life is a terminal disease. I learned about it firsthand when my father was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, and he died 10 days later. He didn’t want to consume a lot of resources and left the world the way he wanted. And they made him comfortable, and not only him, but they worked with the family, too.”

abutler@durangoherald.com



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