Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City and Geisinger Health in rural Philadlephia took the spotlight last month when President Barack Obama included them in a talk he gave in Green Bay, Wis.
“We have to ask why places like the Geisinger Health system in rural Pennsylvania, Intermountain Health in Salt Lake City or communities like Green Bay can offer high-quality care at costs well below average, but other places in America can’t,” Obama told a packed gymnasium at Green Bay Southwest High School on June 11.
“We need to identify the best practices across the country, learn from the success and replicate that success elsewhere,” he said. “And we should change the warped incentives that reward doctors and hospitals based on how many tests or procedures they prescribe, even if those tests or procedures aren’t necessary or result from medical mistakes. Doctors across this country did not get into the medical profession to be bean counters or paper pushers, to be lawyers or business executives. They became doctors to heal people. And that’s what we must free them to do.”
Obama has repeatedly held up the use healthcare information technology as a means not only to improve patient care, but also to reduce costs.
