The MHA responded to several media requests the week of Feb. 7 on topics including passage Feb. 9 of House Bill 5523 that provides $300 million in healthcare workforce funding, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Feb. 10 executive state budget recommendation and COVID-19 hospitalizations.
The following statement can be attributed to Brian Peters, CEO of the Michigan Health & Hospital Association.
Crucial healthcare funding sources remain protected in the fiscal year 2023 executive budget recommendation. We’d like to express our gratitude toward Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her administration for their commitment supporting rural and critical access hospitals, graduate medical education, the Healthy Michigan Plan and Michigan’s Medicaid population.
Our hospitals are also experiencing a staffing crisis that requires multiple solutions. We are thrilled to see programs that would improve retention and recruitment of healthcare workers. The proposed Hero Pay recognizes the tremendous dedication and sacrifice of healthcare workers throughout the pandemic, while the talent pipeline will be expanded through additional investments in medical education and reviewing potential licensing flexibility for foreign-trained medical professionals.
Michigan’s behavioral health system is also stressed to its limits, and we’re encouraged to see a greater focus and financial resources toward providing potentially transformational improvements to the state’s behavioral health system that can address many of the challenges patients and families currently face.
We’d be remiss if we did not thank all lawmakers and state officials who have worked tirelessly over the past two years to provide relief and support to hospitals and health systems over the course of the pandemic. As we enter another budget cycle, we look forward to continuing to engage with the Michigan Legislature to advance the health of Michigan individuals and communities.
The following statement can be attributed to Brian Peters, CEO of the Michigan Health & Hospital Association.
Hospitals throughout all regions of Michigan are experiencing significant workforce shortages. The passage today of House Bill 5523 provides critically needed resources for recruitment and retention of healthcare workers to care for our communities. This funding is vital to assist hospitals and health systems in addressing high job vacancy rates, providing training and development, and supporting existing workers who have resiliently provided care for patients throughout the two years of this pandemic.
We’d like to express our gratitude to the Michigan Legislature for prioritizing this funding that will go directly toward Michigan healthcare workers. We encourage Gov. Whitmer to sign this bill as soon as it reaches her desk to bring urgently needed relief to our healthcare workforce.
The following statement can be attributed to Brian Peters, CEO of the Michigan Health & Hospital Association.
The situation in Michigan hospitals is dire and the overwhelming support of Senate Bill 759 from the Michigan Legislature places into law another tool hospitals can use to address staffing shortages in the short-term. We appreciate the speed which lawmakers prioritized this bill and encourage Gov. Whitmer to sign this important piece of legislation so out-of-state providers who are in good standing and trained, educated, and experienced to provide medical care can continue to do so in Michigan without a Michigan-specific license.
The following statement can be attributed to Brian Peters, CEO of the Michigan Health & Hospital Association.
The current situation facing our hospitals and health system is dire and today’s approval by the U.S. Department of Defense to grant clinical staffing support is desperately needed to provide relief to our vital healthcare workforce. Many hospitals throughout the state are operating at capacity, delaying nonemergency medical procedures and placing their emergency departments on diversion. Receiving these teams of federal caregivers can only help those hospitals.
We want to commend Gov. Whitmer and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services for making the formal request on behalf of Michigan hospitals and express our gratitude to the Department of Defense for granting this request so quickly.
However, the strain on our healthcare system is severe and we still need the public’s help to slow the extreme growth of cases and hospitalizations. Please get vaccinated, whether it is your first dose, vaccination for your children or a booster dose. Adhere to the public health advisory and wear a mask in crowded indoor gatherings. And contact your primary care provider or seek care at an outpatient setting for nonemergency medical needs. Together we can get through this crisis, but it will take all Michiganders doing the right thing.
If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.”— W. Edwards Deming
The last week has been an eventful and successful one for the MHA. The Michigan Legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer came to an agreement on the state budget for the new fiscal year, which fully preserves all our hospital and healthcare funding priorities — needed more than ever as our hospitals continue to combat COVID-19 and deal with extraordinary staffing challenges. We were officially honored by Modern Healthcare with the Best Places to Work in Healthcare distinction. And finally, we received great news when Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) announced a $5 million commitment through 2024 to support the MHA Keystone Center’s expanded quality and safety improvement programs. I would like to personally thank BCBSM CEO Dan Loepp for his support of this continued partnership, which is the right thing to do for all Michiganders.
Since its inception in 2003, the MHA Keystone Center has provided leadership and facilitation that has directly resulted in improved patient care and quality outcomes — in other words, we have demonstrably saved lives and saved healthcare dollars. No wonder that the MHA Keystone Center has earned both national and international acclaim.
Our first flagship initiative involved central line associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI). Through that work, Michigan hospitals saw a 22% improvement in CLABSI rates. Initial BCBSM funding also supported work that saw a 31% improvement in catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) and a 5.9% improvement in venous thromboembolism.
Following our initial successes, the Great Lakes Partners for Patients (GLPP) Hospital Improvement Innovation Network (HIIN) was created, allowing us to collaborate with our colleagues in Illinois and Wisconsin. Our HIIN efforts from Sept. 2016 to March 2020 produced a total cost savings of nearly $293 million, saved 3,350 lives and avoided 25,204 incidents of harm among hospitalized patients.
The MHA is now one of eight organizations participating in the Superior Health Quality Alliance, a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)-contracted organization that seeks to improve the quality of health and healthcare through innovation, effectiveness and efficiency in designing and implementing CMS Network of Quality Improvement and Innovation Contractors initiatives that are person-centered and integrated across the continuum of care and services. This important work with federal contracts is yet another way we can improve quality in the acute care setting.
High reliability work has been a focal point for the MHA for several years, which was initiated with our members in 2015. This work ensures exceptional quality of care is consistently delivered for every patient, every time. In 2018, the MHA Keystone Center launched a Reliability Culture Implementation Guide in partnership with our fellow state hospital associations from Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin. This guide provides resources available for front-line staff, executive leaders and board members to help identify areas of opportunity.
Over the past year, CEOs representing all our community hospitals have signed the MHA Pledge to Address Racism and Health Inequities, demonstrating our members’ unified commitment to address disparities, dismantle institutional racism and achieve health equity. Recent examples of tangible steps taken to accomplish those goals include the publishing of the Eliminating Disparities to Advance Health Equity and Improve Quality guide and offering a virtual series to address four diversity, equity and inclusion concepts: equitable conversations, equitable messaging, partnership building and diversity pipeline development. The Health Equity guide is geared to assist organizations in addressing health disparities to achieve equitable care by providing key strategies, recommendations for action, implementation levels, and resources to support progress.
Thanks to funding from the Michigan Health Endowment Fund, the MHA Keystone Center recently launched its second Age-Friendly Health Systems Action Community free of charge to MHA members. The Action Community builds on existing practices of participating organizations and combines them to reliably implement the evidence-based framework of high-quality care with all older adults in the system. With Michigan’s aging population, this work is exceptionally important and timely.
One way to help instill a safety culture within a healthcare organization is empowering all members of a care team to speak up if they think something may be wrong. Our patient safety organization created the quarterly Speak-up! Award program five years ago to honor healthcare staff who spoke up to prevent harm, which has prevented nearly $12 million in avoidable costs.
We have also done our part to address the tragedy of opioid overdoses, which lead to more deaths in Michigan than automobile accidents. The GLPP HIIN recently created the Midwest Alternatives to Opioids (ALTO) program; participating hospitals collectively have seen an 11.32% decrease in opioid administration and a 13.38% increase in ALTO administration. Because the COVID-19 pandemic has only worsened the opioid epidemic, we are committed to expanding this important work.
The MHA advocacy and policy departments also assisted in the creation of Project Baby Deer, a rapid Whole Genome Sequencing project to improve pediatric intensive care units and outcomes in Michigan. Genetic disorders are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in infants. Early diagnosis of genetic disease has the potential to change clinical management in many meaningful ways, including initiating lifesaving treatments, avoiding unnecessary tests and procedures, shortening hospital stays and empowering families with real-time diagnoses to help with their understanding and decision-making. In addition to improving outcomes, Project Baby Deer also can prevent avoidable healthcare costs.
As you can see, we have a rich history that we can be incredibly proud of. And without question, BCBSM has been an instrumental partner with us on this journey, providing some $16 million in direct funding support to date. This new BCBSM funding will help to ensure that our critical work in safety and quality continues into the future. Specifically, it will allow the MHA Keystone Center to increase hospital participation in the Michigan Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (MI AIM), increasing implementation of pre- and post-partum Obstetric Hemorrhagic Risk Assessment, increasing implementation of Quantitative Blood Loss Assessment, and increasing the percentage of women who receive timely treatment of severe hypertension. It will accelerate our work on the opioid epidemic by maximizing the use of medication-assisted therapy, and it will allow us to expand our efforts to address healthcare workplace injuries — thereby ensuring that hospitals are as safe as possible for our front-line caregivers.
In each example noted above, we have helped to establish a clear process that people can understand, trust and execute.
Lastly, I want to stress that all Michigan hospitals and their team members voluntarily participate in MHA Keystone Center initiatives to advance safety for patients and workers and quality of care. There is no mandate in place to require hospitals to participate in this work, but they each choose to do so because of their missions to care for the sick and vulnerable. The pandemic has shined a bright light on the unselfishness of our healthcare heroes and their participation in these efforts is another terrific example of the lengths they go to improve care for their patients. I want to thank both BCBSM and our member hospitals for believing in this vital work and taking the steps necessary to ensure evidence-based best practices are implemented to the point that they make a difference in patients’ lives. This is mission-driven work that all Michiganders can be proud of
The following statement can be attributed to Brian Peters, CEO of the Michigan Health & Hospital Association.
The pandemic has challenged hospitals throughout the state and, on behalf of our members, we commend Gov. Whitmer for signing today a state budget that continues vital funding sources for our hospitals, increases support for direct care workers and ambulance services, and maintains extended Medicaid coverage for mothers up to 12 months postpartum. We extend equal appreciation to both the Legislature and Gov. Whitmer and her administration for passing a budget on time that maintains access to care throughout Michigan.
As our hospitals continue to face both a behavioral health and workforce crisis that is stressing hospitals to capacity, we look forward to continued discussions on how additional state and federal funding can be allocated through the supplemental budget process to secure support for transformational solutions
The last week has been an eventful and successful one for the MHA. The Michigan Legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer came to an agreement on the state budget for the new fiscal year, which fully preserves all our hospital and healthcare funding priorities — needed more than ever as our hospitals continue to combat COVID-19 and deal with extraordinary staffing challenges. We were officially honored by Modern Healthcare with the 