AUTHOR OF ‘UNACCOUNTABLE’ KICKS OFF HEALTHCARE COMMISSION’S TRAVELING ‘TRANSPARENCY TOUR’ via Christine Sexton of Florida Politics
The “Spotlight Transparency Tour” starts in Tampa on Wednesday June 17 with at least two local hospital executives and Marty Makary, medical doctor and author of “Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won’t Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care,” slated to address Gov. Rick Scott’s blue ribbon commission.
Makary, associate professor of health policy at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, will address the Commission on Healthcare and Hospital Funding for 90 minutes, according to a draft copy of the agenda. Carlos Beruff asked at a May 26, meeting that the commission members be given a copy of the 2013 book.
Scott announced in a press release that the nine-member commission he appointed in May would begin a statewide transparency tour and that in each city the commission will invite the “lowest and highest performing hospitals” to prevent detailed information on their costs, profits and patient outcomes.
To that end, commission members, Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Liz Dudek and Department of Health Secretary John Armstrong, invited two hospitals from the greater Tampa area to make presentations before the board.
Armstrong asked Tampa General Hospital President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Burkhart to provide an “initial snapshot” of the facility, including the number of admissions, case mix, length of stay, emergency department visits, total margin, and average cost per patient. He also asked for Burkhart to provide a review of the hospital’s “operational efficiencies, quality measurement, use of state-supported public funding, and performance-based executive salaries/compensation.”
For meeting agenda: .pdf| Commission on Healthcare and Hospital Funding