Moving forward: Remarks by Marna Borgstrom, YNHHS CEO

Marna Borgstrom, YNHHS Chief Executive Officer

Will YNHHS continue to grow?

If we measure growth in terms of adding more hospitals, the answer is "possibly," but if we measure growth by creating new services and/or partnering with other providers on the continuum of care, the answer is "quite probably." We will probably add more physicians and ambulatory sites, but more likely through collaborations rather than acquisitions. I hope we will be able to continue to grow our services within Connecticut because this is our home, but we will consider growing outside the state as well.

What are the major issues facing us?

We must be a leader in changing how health care is delivered so that we are more patient-centered and can provide extraordinary care and service at lower overall costs. As a country, we cannot afford the growth in healthcare expenditures that we have seen in the past 20 years. We need to be open to models of care that use different caregivers in different settings to support better health and to preserve access to traditional acute care when it is really needed.

What do we need to be successful?

We must be able to demonstrate the value of the care and services that we offer our patients. That is defining the quality, safety and patient experience advantage at a cost/price point that people who are increasingly paying for more of their care can understand. Defining better care, integrating it for our patients, and managing our costs are critical to achieving a distinctive value proposition.

What do we need to focus on?

Yale New Haven Health has a very robust infrastructure and offers a broad array of services. When we grow our corporate or clinical services, we always ask, "Does it make the service and/or the care to our patients better than it was before?" and "Does it help us do it more cost-effectively?" We need to make sure that we test our new initiatives against those criteria.

What do you mean by "signature of care"?

Yale New Haven Health is known for high quality care and expertise. However most patients cannot evaluate objectively the clinical quality of their care. They are experts, however, in what a good experience is. We need to ensure that all of our employees and physicians embrace our commitment to the highest standards of care and caring. When patients go to any one of our nearly 400 locations, they should be confident they will consistently be treated with compassion and respect. That must be our signature.