Greg Van Pelt, who retired last April as CEO of Providence Health & Services Oregon region, can’t seem to put down the mantle, and is convinced healthcare is in his blood.
“I’m interested in being a good steward of our healthcare system,” he told The Lund Report.
That’s why Van Pelt decided to accept the challenge after Denise Honzel announced her retirement and became president of the Oregon Health Leadership Council.
At the same time, he’s been recruited by Governor Kitzhaber to help resolve the technological problems faced by the troubled Cover Oregon website – but was reluctant to say when it’ll be up and running. He was also brought in to help manage the hybrid paper process that’s allowed 30,000 Oregonians to get private insurance coverage.
Stepping into the limelight of the leadership council, Van Pelt had nothing but praise for Honzel, who, in 2008, brought together business and health policy leaders to create the organization to deal with rising healthcare costs and help shape health policy.
“Denise has been a great asset to Oregon healthcare and the larger Oregon community and has done a great job helping us as the leadership council got started, kept us together and helped us accomplish great things,” he said.
Looking ahead, the council’s intent on working with the governor’s office, legislators and the Oregon Health Authority on the 2015-17 Medicaid budget, while supporting information exchange among hospital emergency departments and advance care planning with health plans and clinicians, Van Pelt said.
Another new project could appear on the drawing board --- data aggregation – but hasn’t yet been given the green light.
“It’s no surprise that we have many requests and interests in the same data,” said Van Pelt, such as what’s being collected by the all payer all claims data base. “Each health plan has its own information and many hospitals do along with the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, but they’re not connected and there are so many different silos. We’re looking at how we could work together and cull the data in a repository and share as necessary with our partners.”
Just as an example, he said, a single physician is expected to report on 130 different metrics – everything ranging from LeapFrog to The Joint Commission – to Medicaid and Medicare along with the coordinated care organizations.
“It’s almost impossible to do that and do it well,” he said “So what’s the hierarchy of priorities and how could we facilitate that data collection and sharing – that’s what the council will be looking at.”
Comprised of 30 members, the council includes the leaders of hospital systems, medical groups, health plans, the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems and the director of the Oregon Health Authority. Currently, its co-chairs are Drs. George Brown, president of Legacy Health and and William Johnson, president of Moda Health.
Denise Honzel Retires
Although she’s stepping away from the daily grind, Honzel will continue as health policy consultant to the Oregon Business Council and will remain on the boards of OCHIN and the Oregon Healthcare Work Force Institute.
Under her leadership at the council, she helped the Oregon Health Authority and governor’s office develop a Medicaid funding strategy for the 2013-2015 budget, while working on a multi-payer medical home with 14 medical groups across the state that resulted in a payment approach for 3,600 high risk patients.
She also led efforts to support administrative simplification with 10 health plans, using one secure portal that gave providers access to websites for business transactions and, together with other health leaders, developed a value-based benefit design now offered by five insurers including the Public Employees Benefit Board (state employees) and the Oregon Educators Benefit Board (school teachers).
“It’s been pretty exciting – problem solving and bringing people together to do right thing and I’ll still watch from afar,” Honzel said. “I know that Greg will do a super job in taking the council to the next phase of where it needs to go.”
Honzel’s illustrious career included a 25-year stint at Kaiser Permanente -- the last 13 years as vice president of its health plan – while she was also responsible for integrating the operations of sales, marketing and insurance functions for Kaiser Permanente Northwest, Group Health Cooperative (Seattle) and Group Health Northwest (Spokane).
Concerned about the shortage of healthcare workers, she became the first director of the Oregon Center for Health Professions at the Oregon Institute of Technology and not only developed its program expansion, but also led a multi-million-dollar funding effort. Today that center is known as the Martha Anne Dow Center for Health Professionals.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
To learn more about the Oregon Health Leadership Council, click here.
