Janet Silversmith, MA

CEO | Minnesota Medical Association

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Challenges: We must treat the novel coronavirus within a highly politicized climate. There are also the challenges of delivering care to non-COVID patients, many of whom are fearful and delaying needed care. We also face financial pressures that squeeze all organizations

Strategies: We deliver timely and relevant information to physicians, advocate for financial protections for medical groups, work to ensure access to medical equipment and supplies, seek limited and reasonable liability protections, and continue efforts to support telehealth. Our Practice Good Health campaign reinforces COVID prevention tips and the importance of maintaining ongoing care. The MMA has also done new research regarding the impacts of COVID on physicians and their practices.

Dawn Simonson, MPA

Executive Director | Metropolitan Area Agency on Aging

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Challenges: We anticipate ongoing challenges to health and well-being due to the aging population and the pandemic. Successful health care increasingly requires integration of medical care and social services. We’re excited to see advances in age-friendly health care, understanding that it requires system transformation.

Strategies: We are maintaining our social services core and expanding to provide more health-related services. As our partnerships with health care organizations grow, older adults have new options for managing chronic disease, preventing falls, combating isolation, and connecting to community supports. We’ve invested in our capabilities to form and support networks of providers. As a network hub, we create efficient and accountable mechanisms for contracting, data and analytics, and marketing.

Troy Simonson

CEO | Revo Health

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Challenges: The willingness and ability to be transformational.  Healthcare entities have been very successful in the current model of fee for service reimbursement, taking minimal financial risk and little accountability for quality performance.  However, the model is not sustainable.  The challenge is for organizations to transform and lead a model that is sustainable and brings value to all stakeholders.  The transformation must also include a level of patient engagement and patient choice.

Strategies: Focusing strategic plans on value-based care and patient choice.  The core principles of Infinite Health Collaborative focus on 1) patient choice 2) delivery of value-based care services and 3) collection of patient outcomes.  Revo Health is working with physicians across the country to create the revolution and transformation in healthcare.

Christopher E. Steele, DDS

President | Park Dental

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Challenges: We are focused on the challenges of maintaining patient, doctor, and team member safety. Our patients also expect superior service and care, despite new protocols regarding patient flow and PPE. Fortunately, our patients’ trust has improved overall demand. Our strategic goals remain the priority. Park Dental’s primary concerns continue to be expenses: team-member compensation, supplies (including new PPE requirements and reliance on technology for delivery of dental care), paired with the downward pressures of fee reimbursement.

Strategies: Park Dental historically built an organizational culture that emphasizes patient care and service, plus expectations driving competitive improvements. We’re also developing our clinical and business intelligence platform to provide strategic clarity.

Anne Stephen, MD

Chief Medical Officer–East Market | Essentia Health

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Challenges: Providing preventive care amid the pandemic will be an ongoing challenge for months to come. To keep our patients and staff safe, we need to ensure social distancing. That means having fewer people in hallways, lobbies, and clinics. We are working on creative ways to keep people safe and still get all the care they need.

Strategies: We deliver some patient care via telehealth, but we can’t screen for cancer properly or administer immunizations virtually. We have set up special locations for immunizations to reduce the number of people who are in our clinics at the same time. We screen every patient who comes in for colonoscopy, mammogram, and cervical cancer tests for COVID 19 and practice safe prevention guidelines.

Paula M. Termuhlen, MD

Regional Campus Dean | University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth Campus

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Challenges: One of the biggest challenges is to provide equitable and accessible care. The health disparities that many communities of color experience are ones that we are called upon to tackle. Disparities in quality of care and accessibility of care also vary by region. In Minnesota, this includes rural and urban settings

Strategies: As a medical school, we are called to teach our students about the social determinants of health that impact the experience and accessibility of care. We have new curricula under development to help our learners gain deeper understanding of their patients in both rural and urban settings and understand the public health impact of structural racism.

John Thomas,  MD, MBA

Otolaryngologist | M Health Fairview

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Challenges: Meaningful payment reform. The current payment system is a straightjacket on any attempt at innovation. Several colleagues and I developed an alternative model for ENT delivery pre-COVID that would have been more convenient and safer for patients, less expensive and more satisfying to us. What killed it? According to our legal counsel, it was ahead of its time because it would be impossible to implement given the current payment system.

Strategies: After running up against an ossified payment system, I decided to throw in the towel on private practice and joined a large system for now. In my opinion, the business healthcare has become far too complex and requires professional managers to handle the regulatory burden. I am still looking for ways to innovate and disrupt.

David Thorson, MD

Entira Family Clinics

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Challenges: Conversations should be about delivering health, not health care. We need to encourage collaboration between medical providers and public agencies. Social determinants of health need to be addressed to decrease cost and improve health. The centralization of health care through merged vertically integrated systems has not delivered on its vision of decreased cost with increased quality.

Strategies: Entira Family Clinics has a foundational goal of being high quality and low cost. We accomplish this by maintaining our independence and referring to likeminded subspecialists.  Our physicians have a broad scope of practice (including OB) and we evaluate, identify and implement best practices. Entira Clinics are also certified Health Care Homes to address social determinants and bridge the gap between clinics and community resources.