Meet Our President and CEO
       Q & A With Art Blank

Art Blank President/CEO, MDI Hospital

 

What do you envision as your primary leadership role? To do whatever I can to enhance the ability of our many talented professionals to identify our organizational and community needs and to assist in building solutions to meet those needs. How do you see MDI Hospital's future? Health care is changing. This hospital is changing. This hospital needs to continue changing. And change, which is often perceived as unsettling, can be challenging, invigorating, inspiring and can result in a win-win situation. We may find better ways to provide more services and meet more needs in cost-effective ways. Although there are financial constraints on hospitals today, there are also new technologies and medical practices being developed which can offset many of the imposed constraints. Our hospital's construction projects are great examples of how this hospital is adapting to the changes in health care. Seventy-five years ago we had 90 beds, we now maintain 25 beds. Technology and advances in pharmaceuticals have decreased the need to have patients stay overnight. As the average inpatient census at hospitals continues to decrease, it is important this hospital continue to adapt. Changing the parts of our hospital which were patient rooms and making space for patients and their families as outpatients, space for waiting rooms, space for them to sit in the cafeteria, space for their rehabilitative programs and diagnostic equipment, such as x-rays, is a necessary adaptation. How do you see the future of health care?  Health care is a growing part of the economy. Greater than 14 percent of our Gross National Product (GNP) is spent on health care. This is considerably higher than three years ago. But the health care growth is not in areas of traditional hospital services. There is more competition for those dollars. More money is being spent in directions away from traditional hospital services due to drastic changes in medical practices which demand more outpatient services.  The governmental pressure to create better, more efficient processes will also continue. At the same time the public will continue to ask health care providers to expand access and increase quality of care. The old financial system did not encourage us to examine costs in a meaningful way. In the old cost reimbursement system, the more money health care providers spent, the more money Medicare paid to them. Recognizing this as costly and inefficient, the government has changed this system. Health care facilities are now being asked to contain costs without restricting access, while continuing to maintain quality of care. What do you see as the key to our success? Our ability as an organization and health care professionals to continuously adapt to the environment while maintaining a focus on serving the community and promoting the relationships our staff and patients have built together.  MDI Hospital is on the right track. We have looked beyond aspects of the health care system that have traditionally belonged to hospitals, to integrate what we do with patients in a primary care setting up through meeting their housing and health care needs when in retirement. Our subsidiary, Birch Bay Village, along with the MDI  Health Centers, are strategically intended to fit together to meet the wide array of health care needs in our community. Our challenge is to find innovative ways to meet the needs of our community and the government. As a hospital full of talented staff members with an integrated medical staff who work closely with us, we have a good opportunity to develop solutions to the challenges we face. What we have accomplished to date should make us all feel proud. To send questions or comments to Art Blank, click here.

 
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