Where does it hurt? Health care in 2012

On Sunday, January 1, the Daily News “Perspectives” section presented articles by the heads of Naples’ principal medical facilities. The president and CEO of Naples Community Hospital Healthcare System, and the CEO of Physicians Regional Healthcare System laid out their institutions’ plans for the new year. These short essays provide two forward-looking statements on health care in our region.

Titled “An even more promising future,” the NCH president’s article begins by identifying “four irreversible trends”: the economy, globalization, computerization and the environment. A writer’s first job is to gain the reader’s attention. This is accomplished here by defying expectations: the four trends don’t seem directly related to health care.

Beginning with the economy, the writer now offers sobering statistics (and their source) to underscore how bad things still are: “According to the Census Bureau, median household income has fallen below $50,000; 20 percent of Americans have less than $1.000 in savings, and 50 percent have less than $5,000. Sadly, the number of people living in poverty has risen to 46 million.”

What can be done locally to help? The CEO’s surprising answer is “medical tourism.”

“At NCH Healthcare System…, we attract one in eight patients from outside our five-county area.” The patients are coming “to be treated for a range of elective procedures, from joint replacements to heart surgery, where we rank in the top 10 percent in the nation, according to the Society for Thoracic Surgery. As our health-care service grows and develops into a medical destination site, so does our region’s economy.”

Thus, NCH is helping to restore the crippled economy through something analogous to destination weddings. Instead of nuptials dreamed up by couples who propose getting married in Bora Bora, NCH will play innkeeper to travelers in search not just of beaches and sunsets, but also of new hips and heart valves.

The writer next takes up globalization, then computerization: “NCH plans to make 2012 the year of the ‘health information exchange.’” This will be achieved by making patients’ medical records “easily and securely accessible anywhere and anytime….” Lastly, in terms of the environment NCH will join other environmentally sensitive institutions: “...our goal in 2012 is to recycle 1 million pounds of waste.”

Ultimately, the essay’s goal is to promote the image of NCH. The approach taken is to capture interest by being counter-intuitive, and to use statistics for which respectable sources are identified. This strategy works well.

In “A continued push for quality care,” the CEO of Physicians Regional Healthcare System begins by telling readers that the “opportunities and adventures” of 2012 “will be partly controlled by us, as individuals, as a community at large, and partly by those that see us only as ‘the voting public’ or ‘shareholders.’”

This decidedly political tone is further developed. “We will be exposed to an election year of promises and the pledge to balance our nation’s budget without any special-interest groups being asked to tighten its belt. We will hear from our federal government about how the cost of health care is rising and that ‘quality care’ is required while at the same time discussing reimbursement reductions to physicians and hospitals.”

As in the first essay, the writer is cautioning us about the future, but the challenges ahead are framed in terms of election-year assaults on health care. Through use of “us,” “we” and “our,” he is encouraging readers to see themselves as allied with Physicians Regional, ready to face a common enemy in the battle to come.

But even though we all need to be combat-ready, the CEO assures us that “lucid focus on patient-centered care and technological innovations must always be at the forefront of discussion” about health care. After identifying two rating agencies that will confirm Physicians Regional as having “Southwest Florida’s highest scores in quality measures,” the writer describes new state-of-the-art surgical robots and MRI equipment used by his system.

What is also much in evidence are tried and true—and in some instances, overused—figures of speech. Here’s a short list: building a great team, second to none, forging solid relationships, uncompromising care, state-of-the-art, highly skilled physicians and staff, at some point in time, compassionate caregivers and support staff. The essay concludes with “God bless.”

Each writer seeks to persuade readers that his institution is especially worthy. Both rely on factual, verifiable information, but where one places his institution in a global context, the other chooses a more conventional, public-relations strategy.