AHA op-ed: Hospitals share common public policy needs on way to better care

Hospitals are on a journey to improve and transform care based on the unique needs of their community, AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack writes in an opinion piece published Saturday in Modern Healthcare. “Regardless of which path they are travelling, hospitals share a public policy agenda to ensure that they can continue to progress on this critical journey of improvement and transformation,” he writes. “Legal and regulatory barriers should be removed so providers can work together more easily. Opportunities should be expanded for telemedicine, while creating better standards to ensure interoperability of electronic health records. Above all, hospitals need predictable and reliable funding from Medicare and Medicaid. This will allow hospitals to continue their critical work – improving quality and patient safety; reducing readmissions; eliminating disparities and variations in care; increasing diversity in their workforce and leadership; and finding new efficiencies to take costs out of the systems.”