Healthy Dialogues

The Healthy Dialogues lecture series brings national thought leaders to Utah audiences for health policy discussions. Our goal is to increase community leader dialogue and help find local solutions to the challenges facing America's health system.

N E X T   E V E N T

The founder of the nonpartisan Center for Health Transformation and former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, will speak to community leaders on October 29 as part of Intermountain Healthcare's Healthy Dialogues lecture series. The exact time and location will be announced in September.

Bradley A. Perkins, MD, MBA
April 29, 2008

Dr. Perkins was in Utah as a guest of the Utah Department of Health. While in Salt Lake City, Dr. Perkins addressed policy implications of prevention in managing rising healthcare costs on a state level in the April presentation of the Healthy Dialogues speakers series. He provided suggestions about what really works in prevention, and explored ways health policy reformers can use government resources to impact health and rising healthcare costs.

The chief strategy and innovation officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he has served since 1989, Dr. Perkins is considered "a catalyst for CDC efforts to influence health system transformation in ways that emphasize health protection and health equity through policy interventions and multi-sector and public engagement."

A copy of Dr. Perkins' presentation is available through the Communications Department of Intermountain Healthcare, by calling (801) 442-2836.

Ken Kizer, MD, MPH
January 24, 2008

Dr. Kizer discussed the key questions policy makers should be asking to find solutions to the challenges facing America's healthcare system. He suggested creating a vision for what an ideal healthcare system might look like, and laid out concrete ideas about developing that system.

From 1994-1999, Dr. Kizer led a dramatic transformation of the Veterans Administration hospital system – one of the world's largest health organizations with an annual budget of more than $20 billion, approximately 200,000 employees, and more than 1,300 facilities. As Under Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs, he used information technology and best practice guidelines to significantly cut costs while improving medical quality and outcomes. He has also served as the director of the California Department of Health Services and director of the National Quality Forum.

Dr. Kizer's PowerPoint presentation is available through the Communications Department of Intermountain Healthcare, by calling (801) 442-2836.

Mark Chassin, MD, MPP, MPH
October 24, 2007

Dr. Chassin addressed Utah policymakers, community leaders, healthcare providers, and the public as the keynote speaker in Intermountain Healthcare's Healthy Dialogues speaker series. Dr. Chassin is the incoming president of the Joint Commission.

True reform, Dr. Chassin said, will mean significant change in each of the three dimensions of healthcare: cost, quality, and access.

• Cost. American healthcare is the most expensive in the world, Dr. Chassin said, and it has been for more than four decades. Furthermore, globalization and competition are making America's healthcare cost structure increasingly untenable.
• Access. Universal health insurance must be part of the goal of health reform, Dr. Chassin said. There is a demonstrable link between a lack of health insurance and poor health, he said, and poor health takes a heavy toll on a nation.
• Quality. America is a wealthy nation, and higher costs for healthcare and universal health coverage might be acceptable if the United States had the highest-quality care in the world. But it doesn't, Dr. Chassin said.

America already spends enough money on healthcare to provide effective care for all, Dr. Chassin said, including those who are currently uninsured. What it needs is a "quality-driven health strategy" that addresses issues of medical overuse (doing more than is medically necessary/appropriate), under-use (the failure to provide a service when it would have helped), and misuse (medical mistakes).

A DVD of Dr. Chassin's entire presentation is available through the Communications Department of Intermountain Healthcare by calling (801) 442-2836.

Elliott Fisher, MD, MPH
July 19, 2007

Dr. Elliott Fisher spoke in July in Salt Lake City as the first guest presenter in Intermountain's Healthy Dialogues series. As the director of the Institute for Health Care Research and Reform in Dartmouth's Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences, he has been a leader in the university's Atlas of Health Care research project. He also serves as co-chair of the National Quality Forum committee that is developing a framework for measuring and improving efficiency in healthcare.

Citing a study of Medicare patients that focused on effectiveness of care, Dr. Fisher noted that the average expenditure per patient at LDS Hospital was less than half the expenditures at leading hospitals in California, New York, and Baltimore – with equal or superior quality. He said this finding prompted Uwe Reinhardt, professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University, to ask: "How can the best medical care in the world cost twice as much as the best medical care in the world?"

Providing the right care does not mean providing the most care, according to Dr. Fisher. "Higher spending across regions and physician groups is largely due to overuse of supply-sensitive services – hospital and ICU stays, MD visits, specialist consults – and, at the margin, more is worse," he said.

A DVD of Dr. Fisher's entire presentation is available through the Communications Department of Intermountain Healthcare by calling (801) 442-2836.