Newt Gingrich Speaks about 21st Century Healthcare at Alegent Health

Date: June 11, 2008

Location: Omaha, NE

Center Founder Newt Gingrich spent the day with leaders of Alegent Health in Omaha, Nebraska, discussing healthcare innovations and technology, as well as celebrating the Alegent’s many successes.

ALEGENT SUCCESSES
Alegent CEO Wayne Sensor and Gingrich addressed an audience of almost 200 Alegent managers, sharing their visions for 21st century healthcare.

Alegent CEO Wayne Sensor provided opening remarks and also showed a video which highlighted Alegent’s many achievements with consumer driven healthcare, including a combined loss of 13,000 pounds and 500 participants who have stopped smoking. Sensor encouraged the audience to embrace their role as leaders in healing a broken national healthcare system.

Also, Sensor announced that, according to the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement, Alegent has the highest quality scores in the nation, replacing former number one, the Mayo Clinic. Sensor credits this achievement in part due to the fact that Alegent posts all of its quality scores publicly. When Alegent began this practice several years ago, their quality scores were just average. The public accountability, however, ultimately resulted in Alegent scoring a 97% on HCAHPS quality scoring.

Gingrich applauded the achievements of Alegent and encouraged them to persist in their hard work. He pushed Sensor and others in the Alegent community to continue to seek out what works, effectively and accurately collect data, and, in turn, provide practical and realistic responses to health. Health, Gingrich contended, is a partnership between leaders, providers, and patients. However, most individuals are indifferent about their health until it matters, often becoming health-conscious only having met the threshold of becoming a patient. Alegent can play a unique and dominant role in changing this ideology by helping re-center people to the notion that being healthy is much better than being a patient, said Gingrich. He also encouraged the leadership at Alegent to become an active part of the community of learning about health by shaping the conversation so that the average person can hear the message and apply it to themselves.

HOSPITAL INNOVATIONS
Following his remarks and a brief question and answer session, Gingrich toured Alegent’s Lakeside Hospital, where he witnessed several examples of cutting-edge medical technology. Examples of Alegent’s high-tech initiatives include plasma screen monitors to replace whiteboards and a two-way camera system, which allows nurses and doctors to communicate from different areas of the hospital.

While at Lakeside, Gingrich spoke, along with Sensor, Ken Stinson from Kiewit, and Jane Miller from Gallup. As a mid-sized city, Omaha is isolated and small enough, Gingrich said, to impact a community-wide change in health. If entire communities are involved, including individual companies and at the CEO level, sweeping improvements can be made. Gingrich pointed to other successful models of engagement, including those at Ritz-Carlton, Toyota, and Gallup, and added that the “Omaha model,” if successful, could be brought to bigger cities nationwide.

BUILDING OUT
To round out the day, Gingrich spoke to a group of 200 Omaha business and community leaders. He challenged them to build on what Alegent already does. Gingrich cited three steps to achieve real change on the healthcare front. First, he said, by encouraging employees to focus on prevention and health before acute care, individuals will be able to maximize their length and quality of life while minimizing costs. Second, e-technology must be embraced, with paperless hospitals set as the ideal, where there is never a scenario of someone dying or not getting correct care because of lack of or incorrect information. Third, Gingrich said, comes an evolution of how healthcare is paid for and incentivized. Community leaders can provide support and resources to make all three of these steps reality.

Newt Gingrich Vists Alegent Health gallery.