Matt Ducsik, vice president of cardiovascular and clinical program services at Renton, Wash.-based Providence, discussed the challenge of incorporating whole-person care into cardiovascular services and maintaining the system's footprint during a recent episode of the Becker's Healthcare cardiology podcast.
Here is an excerpt from the podcast. Click here to download the full episode.
Editor's note: This response was lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: What are the biggest challenges you're facing today?
Matt Ducsik: One challenge is integrating our experience in cardiovascular with the concept of whole-person care. At the end of the day, we're treating the person, not just the heart, and people are complex. People with atrial fibrillation may also have sleep apnea, and people with heart failure may also struggle with addiction, and people with vascular disease may also be malnourished. And on top of that, we know that in some communities, there are barriers to access or even basic public health services. It really exerts downstream pressure on a system to take care of those people, but also it presents complex care challenges that require multidisciplinary solutions. We need to be able to work together both within our system and with our community partners rather than our own silos.
The other really major, top-of-mind challenge is around simply maintaining our existing footprint, given the reality of our reimbursement, the reality of our cost structure and our desire to invest in future strategic priorities. Part of our mission is to serve the poor and vulnerable, which means that we take on a larger percentage of the Medicaid population or the uninsured population in lots of our markets. This then places greater importance on lowering our costs and optimizing our delivery system. At the same time, we're seeking to expand access where we're seeking to deliver equitable care, and we're certainly looking to deliver high-quality care.