Over the past couple of years, business owners have been working to determine how best to comply with federal healthcare coverage requirements and provide competitive healthcare benefits to attract and retain the work force their business needs. In the ongoing and congruent effort to also control healthcare costs and improve the bottom line, businesses continue to seek innovative healthcare solutions.
There is growing evidence that the real transformation of our healthcare system will be found in areas that haven’t been the focus of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. I define this transformation as better care and improved service at lower costs.
That is much easier said than done, though. We’re going to need a dominant new model of care called population health management, which brings together providers in a highly collaborative manner to appropriately share the results of tests as well as other health procedures with clinicians that are effectively using electronic medical records, enabling providers to share in savings as opposed to the current dominant model of fee-for-service that rewards for greater and oftentimes unnecessary use of a service.
As the landscape of healthcare has changed, healthcare providers, insurers and human resource benefits professionals have evolved new programs and delivery protocols to serve employers. In Business Magazine editor RaeAnne Marsh navigates the complexities as she delves further into this subject for this issue’s cover story, “The Cure for the Healthcare Headache: Is Business Getting in Gear with the New Healthcare?”
Sales-force deficiencies plague businesses of all sizes and in all sectors. Anthony Caliendo discusses the evolving role of the salesperson as subject-matter expert in this issue’s “Sales” feature. And addressing a phenomenon that impacts both sales and marketing, Scott Deming’s “Roundtable” article looks at the importance of a business owner recognizing how the public views his company’s product or service — which may be remarkably different from what he intends.
Cyber security is a ubiquitous headache for business, but an aspect that may be overlooked amid headlines on hacks of customer databases is the data management of personnel files. Local attorneys address the legal side of this and offer some best practices for businesses.
Also in this April issue is the 2015 Business Healthcare Services Guide — a comprehensive reference for healthcare-related services in the Valley, which is available online for a full year.
This issue may prompt you to reflect on your health and well-being, but there is also the usual full complement of content of topics to help business in our community grow and prosper. Enjoy reading the articles in this issue of In Business Magazine.
Peter S. Fine
President and Chief Executive Officer
Banner Health
Peter S. Fine is president and CEO of Phoenix-based Banner Health, one of the nation’s largest secular, nonprofit healthcare organizations. Banner operates 24 hospitals and other services in seven states, employs more than 36,000 people and has approximately $5 billion in revenue. It is Arizona’s second-largest private employer.
Fine is active in community and industry organizations, and has been recognized with numerous honors from prestigious organizations. Among these are the 2010 CEO IT Achievement Award from Modern Healthcare and Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and the National Healthcare Award in 2007 from B’nai B’rith International.
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