On the Ohio’s Hospice model of bringing together local hospices across Ohio:
Tom Mann:
The Ohio’s Hospice model is giving our associate and affiliate members the help they need to retain confidence in their ability to meet their mission, consistent with our shared values. Our members’ mission of providing superior end-of-life care in our communities is as important today as when most of us started our missions 40 years ago. But in the turbulent, ever-changing healthcare world, meeting the mission is harder than ever. Together we can better leverage common resources so that we can concentrate on our mission. Our goal is to continue being relevant and vital to the health of our communities. This means simultaneously being both the preferred partner of statewide managed care organizations and the vibrant, local, entrenched members of our local communities we’ve been serving for decades.
Kent Anderson:
As hospice providers, we each share a common mission — coming together as one allows our teams to maintain focus on care and services, assuring the highest quality resources and care possible. Coming together helps us achieve economies of scale and skill, helping our staff members to take care of their respective communities in the face of a very challenging and evolving healthcare environment.
On the importance of mission support:
Kent:
As our healthcare system moves from volume to value, small, stand-alone, community-based programs face significant risks, particularly in rural communities. Ohio’s Hospice shares resources to support every staff member of our organization. Technology, like our electronic medical record, for example, means a nurse at the bedside in a rural community can readily get access to timely clinical consults from Ohio’s Hospice experts. We understand that bigger is often not better. But we also understand that being too small in today’s and tomorrow’s healthcare world comes with great risk.
Tom:
From a board perspective, it presents a challenge to create the efficiencies that ensure mission fulfillment while retaining the local identities our members cherish and that define us. What can we do with technology, with people, to be able to leverage capacity that exists and spread it to all the members without adding to the administrative burden? We’ve proven over the years that we can do this and make sure that we don’t lose sight of the mission and don’t lose sight of our local identities.
On the mission to ensure the long-term sustainability of the not-for-profit hospice model through the National Hospice Cooperative:
Kent:
The mission of not-for-profit hospices is endangered. As the healthcare market transitions from volume to value, we can leverage resources, lower costs and help others retain their relevance and vitality. The mission of community-based not-for-profit hospices is not only worth saving but also worth enhancing. Every Ohioan should have access to superior end-of-life care, which is our mission to ensure.
Tom:
We’re going to fight to maintain a central place for our mission throughout the entire state of Ohio. It’s a natural drive of ours to provide the best care to the community. We’re not denying reality. Consumers aren’t always aware of who’s providing their care. We have to do better in educating the public, payors and healthcare professionals about the difference between Ohio’s Hospice and other hospice providers, and about the value of our mission to the communities we’re privileged to serve.
On the response of Ohio’s Hospice to the pandemic:
Kent:
Driven by our values, I said to the staff when the pandemic began that we wanted to maintain 100 percent of full-time employment and full benefits. With hospitals and other healthcare providers furloughing staff, I wanted to create confidence among our staff that we wanted to focus on mission and would be driven by our values. And to do that, they would take care of people — and as a leadership team we would take care of them. I didn’t want Ohio’s Hospice to be reactive. The only thing that has changed is the virus. But by our commitment to make staff feel comfortable and confident that they will continue to have a job, we allowed everyone to focus on mission.
