BTB Exclusive - Coverage of the Business to Business health care roundtable discussion

Tim Darnell & Michael J. Pallerino

April 30, 2008

A recent Business to Business -sponsored roundtable discussion gave the almost 300 people in attendance a unique, inside look into the world of health care through the eyes of Atlanta's leading and most respected hospital executives. (Click here to watch a video of the event.)

John Fox, president and CEO, Emory Healthcare; Gregory L. Simone, M.D., president and CEO, WellStar Health System; and R. Timothy Stack, president and CEO, Piedmont Healthcare – all of whom were featured on the April 2008 cover of Business to Business – discussed their industry at the breakfast event, held at Maggiano's in Buckhead.

One focus for all three facilities is centers of excellence. "We're emphasizing our heart institute, transplant services, neurological sciences and orthopedics, among others," said Stack.

"Anyone can slap a centers of excellence label on anything," Simone said. "I'd like for centers of excellence to have standard practices."

Fox emphasized the "bullet that Atlanta just dodged with Grady."

"We would have been the only top 10 American city without a Level 1 trauma center," he said. "Grady also has the only burn center in Atlanta. [Other Atlanta hospitals] have no capacity for the indigents that Grady serves. We would have seen an increase in ER waiting room times from three hours to 33 hours."

"But we can't allow Grady to continue just limping along," Stack said. "A place like that not only has to survive but prosper."

Stack reiterated his opposition to the special treatment given to Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA), an Illinois for-profit organization that was allowed to bypass the state's certificate of need process. "They got a free pass, and this is not good for the business leaders out there in the audience," he said. "We have to prove my need for beds, for a new service that is over a certain amount of money ... Competition is competition, and we accept that. But you don't want an unfair playing field, and then be told it was fair."