By Ted Shaw, President/CEO, Texas Hospital Association   With the start of a new year and a new decade, we reflect on our past achievements and challenges, and look forward to the promise of a new year. It’s an opportunity for a new beginning and a more refined focus. We take stock and plan new courses of action to better our lives, with resolutions to eat better, exercise more, and reduce stress. Texas hospitals, too,...

By Ted Shaw, President/CEO, Texas Hospital Association   In a world of rapid change, the foundational stability of a business is critical to its survival. A solid financial foundation to support organizational agility and resilience is critical when serious matters such as health — and life — are involved. What if you could not rely on the stability of your local ambulance or fire service?   By the same token, instability tends to have a...

By Ted Shaw, President/CEO, Texas Hospital Association From October 2018 to September 2019, a coalition of health care providers in southeast Texas surpassed its goal of reducing patients’ glycated hemoglobin levels, an important marker of how well a person is managing their diabetes. With funding from the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment program through Texas’ Medicaid 1115 Waiver, local hospital emergency departments, community paramedics, the local health department, a federally qualified health center and social...

By Ted Shaw, President/CEO, Texas Hospital Association All hospitals are unified under the core mission of providing the highest quality care to all their patients. But more and more, Texas hospitals and their counterparts across the nation are being asked to do more with less: compete on price and improve the quality of care while facing sweeping reimbursement cuts. Hospitals’ ability to deliver on their promise is in jeopardy as they face an increasingly uncertain...

BY Ted Shaw, President/CEO, Texas Hospital Association   Measles ranks as one of the leading causes of childhood mortality in the world. Prior to the availability of the measles vaccine, measles cases were estimated at 130 million a year. Despite the progress made in measles control with the introduction of measles vaccination, it is estimated that nearly one million deaths from measles still occurred in 1997. And outbreaks of measles continue to occur even in...

By Ted Shaw, President/CEO, Texas Hospital Association   As the health care landscape has continued to evolve, health care consumers have been asked to bear a larger share of the costs of their health care–whether because of high-deductible health plans or increased cost-sharing requirements. As a result, patients’ interest in the amount they pay for health care services has increased, and Texas hospitals have been at the forefront of providing meaningful price transparency.   Although...

BY Ted Shaw, President/CEO, Texas Hospital Association   Every Memorial Day during odd-numbered years, the Texas Legislature adjourns from its 140-day legislative session. But, this Memorial Day was unlike those in the recent past. It was calm, cool and collected. By sine die, the 86th Legislature already had passed the leadership’s priority items—the 2020-2021 budget and property tax reform and school finance bills. Unlike the 140th day of the 2017 legislative session, discussions of a...

By Ted Shaw, President/CEO, Texas Hospital Association   Patients should never be surprised by unexpected bills for out-of-pocket costs for emergency or unplanned health care services.   Unexpected bills distract patients from healing and recovery and a perpetuate a false notion that health care works against patients. This deters some from seeking the care they need, which ultimately exacerbates the severity of existing conditions and prolongs recovery—health outcomes and philosophies that Texas hospitals, physicians and...

Special to Medical Journal – Houston By TED SHAW, President/CEO, Texas Hospital Association When Hurricane Harvey made landfall between Port Aransas and Port O’Connor in late August 2017, it was the first Category 4 hurricane to hit the U.S. in 13 years. Over the course of a week, the storm dumped more than 60 inches of rain and forged a path of destruction from Rockport, Texas to Cameron, Louisiana. Twenty hospitals were forced to close...

Special to Medical Journal – Houston By TED SHAW, President/CEO, Texas Hospital Association Of Texas’ 254 counties, 70 percent are considered rural. Yet, just 160 of the state’s 600 hospitals are in rural areas. In addition to the shuttering of nearly 30 Dairy Queens and 87 of the Texas Department of Public Safety driver’s license offices in rural Texas, another rural hospital closed its doors in 2018. That brings the total to 20 since 2013....