Ruth Parriott, MSW, MPH

CEO | Twin Cities Medical Society

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Challenges: To maintain Minnesota’s position as a national health care leader, we must acknowledge our failure to produce equitable access and outcomes for all members of our community. This will require facing the racism built into the institution of medicine that creates barriers for both providers and patients of color.

Strategies: Twin Cities Medical Society has a strong history of effectively deploying physician activists to tackle problems beyond the clinic walls to reduce health inequities. As our members continue to advocate for policies that impact social determinants of health such as affordable housing and healthy food access, they are also positioned to advocate internally for antiracist policies within our health systems.

Allison Peterson, MD, MPH

Vice President Medical Affairs | United Hospital, Allina Health

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Challenges: Beyond COVID 19, lack of universal health care coverage is the greatest challenge. Not all Americans can access necessary care without fear of financial hardship. Universal health care does not mean single payer. Comparable first world nations offer choice between private insurance and government coverage. The difference is mandated standardization of the “paperwork”. Our administrative overhead is ever increasing without additional health benefit. We observe added daily struggle for providers who have to work with thousands of different forms in order to ensure patients receive necessary care.

Strategies: We are internally striving to standardize and collaborate with traditional “competitors” in order to improve on our ability to deliver services in a comprehensive and integrated way, never losing sight of the individual for whom we care.

Brian Rank, MD

Co-Executive Medical Director | HealthPartners

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Challenges: The pandemic has magnified some of the biggest challenges we’ve always faced in health care: supporting our clinicians and teams to create and maintain trusted, healing relationships with everyone who chooses us for their care in order to improve health outcomes and decrease disparities. It has also accelerated our work to meet these challenges in new ways.

Strategies: Providing care based on the best science, customized to each patient, is right whether that care is provided in-person or virtually. The pandemic has also required us to interpret new science quickly and be creative in application of that science to get the best outcomes for the people we serve and to collaborate with others to support our communities.

Ed Ratner, MD

Associate Director | Geriatrics Research Education Clinical Center (GRECC), Minneapolis VA Medical Center

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Challenges: The greatest challenge is the demographic trend that is increasing the proportion of the population that is older and has multiple chronic illnesses.  This creates increased demand and complexity for the entire system, including pre-hospital emergency medical services, post-hospital and long-term nursing homes and home care, and all types of COVID-19 care.

Strategies: The Minneapolis Veterans Administration Health System is expanding its geriatrics education and its Geriatrics Research Education Clinical Research Center (GRECC).  It has been recently recognized as an Age Friendly Health System.

Craig Samitt, MD, MBA

President and CEO | Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota

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Challenges: Healthcare’s biggest challenge is our resistance to change.  Everyone in Minnesota should have access to high quality, easy to use, non-bureaucratic, equitable and affordable healthcare, and we must stop making excuses for why we can’t deliver on that promise.

Strategies: We are focused singularly on reinventing healthcare. To fix healthcare, we believe we must put the interests and needs of our customers first, partner more collaboratively with the healthcare system, and aggressively challenge and then reinvent the broken elements of the healthcare industry. Call it becoming the “un-healthplan.”

Tom Schrup, MD, MBA

Executive Vice President and Chief Physician Office | CentraCare

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Challenges: In my view, the largest challenges are affordability, payment reform, changing consumer expectations, access, non-traditional market disruptors, and increasing stress placed on physicians and care teams.

Strategies: I believe most people went into health care for the right reasons, so I focus on mitigating the headwinds and disruption facing health care today.  At an organizational level, we have invested heavily in shaping a healthy, high-performance culture. With providers, we have developed a robust dyad leadership structure that hardwires physician and APP voice at every level of the organization. We emphasize transparency, shared decision-making, and clear communication. These investments enable us to be nimble enough to handle challenges facing us and simultaneously allow our physicians to live their best lives at home and work.

David M. Schultz, MD

Founder and CEO | Nura Pain Clinics

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Challenges: The concept of “evidenced-based medicine” is sometimes highjacked to reduce health care costs by denying care. Although randomized, controlled trials are helpful, this type of “Level 1” evidence is lacking for many effective medical treatments. Physicians must rely on their medical training and experience to care for patients in everyday medical practice. When payers block care as “not supported by evidence,” patients may suffer unnecessarily.

Strategies: Nura has a full-time research department that is actively working to publish outcomes data on our pain management interventions in the real world of private medical practice. We have published multiple studies with more in progress in our attempt to balance science with medical wisdom.

John F Schwerkoske, MD, FACP

President | Minnesota Oncology

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Challenges: Although the COVID-19 pandemic and disparities in health care have become apparent during this crisis and dominate our attention, the underlying problem in health care is a cost level that society cannot afford. Without managing costs, all other problems become insurmountable.

Strategies: Minnesota Oncology partners with payers such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota to improve how health care dollars are spent. Along with other initiatives, we use nationally developed care pathways for cancer to reduce variability and cost, and we provide end-of-life patients with advanced care counseling and palliative services, allowing more end of life care to happen more comfortably and often in the patient’s own home.