He is remembered for his kindness, sense of humor, and knowledge of Wisconsin hospitals. David Jaye, former president of Saint Joseph’s Hospital of Marshfield, led the Wisconsin Hospital Association as chairman of the Board from 1977-1978. He was active in the Association for many years, serving on several WHA committees during his tenure as a hospital executive. This week, WHA received the sad news that Jaye, 75, died in an automobile accident in Ashburn, Georgia on Saturday, April 15. His wife, Mary Anne, was in the accident with Dave and is recovering from her injuries.

David, who was president of Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Marshfield from 1969-1989, was a respected health care leader in Wisconsin. Warren Von Ehren, the first president of WHA, considered Dave to be one of his closest friends and a valued colleague.

"First and foremost, Dave was a real gentleman. He valued input from others, going so far as meeting with every WHA Council to seek their input so he could understand an issue from the rural and urban perspective, Von Ehren said. "Dave provided testimony many times in Madison at hearings on bills that would have an impact on hospitals and on their ability to serve their patients. He was always a great supporter of and believer in continuing education opportunities for hospital administrators."

Visitation is Monday, April 24 at Bolger Funeral Home in Minocqua from 4-7 p.m. Funeral services will be Tuesday, April 25 at Holy Family Catholic Church (formerly known as St. Patrick Church) in Minocqua at 11 a.m. (Bolger Funeral Home can be reached at 715-356-3200).

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On Thursday, April 20, AB 387 authored by State Rep. Jean Hundertmark (R-Clintonville) was signed into law as Act 368. The WHA-supported legislation expands eligibility of the current program to allow not only Wisconsin students enrolled in an associate or bachelor’s program in nursing, but now also opens the program to those enrolled in a master’s or doctorate program in nursing.

The current nursing loan forgiveness program forgives 25 percent of the principal and interest after the first year of employment and an additional 25 percent after the second year. Act 368 extends that forgiveness program to those nurses who become full time nurse educators in the state.

According to Rep. Hundertmark, it is important to expand the program to nurse educators. "Since the creation of this initial program, it has become apparent that Wisconsin is also in dire need of educators to teach our future nurses. It is estimated that by 2006, one third of our nurse educators will reach retirement age, she said."

One of WHA’s major priorities is working to address Wisconsin’s current and future health care workforce shortages, and that includes making sure there are enough faculty to teach the future health care workforce. As the population in Wisconsin approaching retirement grows exponentially in the coming years, the demand for nurses and other health care professionals will continue to grow.

"AB 387 is an important initiative that makes a nursing education more affordable," said Judy Warmuth, WHA’s vice president of workforce. "Extending the loan forgiveness program to not only those who practice nursing, but also to those who teach nursing, recognizes the important need to prepare and encourage more nursing students now to meet our future demands."

WHA applauds Rep. Hundertmark for recognizing the need to encourage young people and those considering second careers to consider becoming a nurse or nurse educator.

At the April 20 WHA Board meeting, WHA Senior Vice President Eric Borgerding congratulated and thanked WHA members for their extraordinary efforts in the fight to restore a cap on non-economic damages. He said the hospital advocacy strategy "was clicking on all cylinders," combining effective lobbying in the Capitol with a deluge of grassroots contacts outside the Capitol to successfully push legislators and the Governor to support the cap. WHA President Steve Brenton presented WHA Chair Mary Starmann-Harrison and Board Member David Olson with plaques in recognition of their special efforts related to restore the cap.

With medical malpractice now off the top burner, the Taxpayer Protection Amendment (TPA) is at the forefront of current advocacy activity. Borgerding said the TPA will remain a top priority for the public policy staff as the legislative session begins to wind down. "We continue to raise the Medicaid issue in the TPA debate. Hospital payments from Medicaid have now dropped below 50 percent of costs, and that’s without TPA. Where will we be with caps on revenue?" Borgerding asked.

Borgerding also briefed the Board members on Governor Doyle’s veto of the Health Care Quality Improvement Act – SB 578. He indicated how gravely disappointed WHA is with the veto he called "ill-advised and a devastating blow to new data transparency efforts."

WHA will return with legislation next session, which he expects trial lawyers to again oppose. "Some people are for collaboration, cooperation and quality improvement. Others simply want more litigation, more lawsuits and big damage awards. In the end, good public policy will prevail."

Congressional Delegation Meetings Will Focus on Transparency Agenda

During his report, Brenton said about 20 WHA members will attend AHA’s Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. While there, WHA staff and members will meet with members of the Wisconsin Congressional delegation. The primary focus of the meetings will be health care transparency. Brenton said pricing transparency has been a topic of intense interest in Washington. Recently, Brenton said he and WHA Information Center’s Joe Kachelski were asked by AHA to provide a briefing of WHA’s PricePoint program to the White House staff. In seeking examples of voluntary pricing transparency programs, AHA chose to showcase PricePoint as an excellent example of how the private sector can provide this information without a government mandate. Brenton said the White House shows no interest in mandating pricing information, but they are interested in learning about state solutions that are voluntary. Brenton noted that Congress is interested to know how hospitals are tackling transparency issues related to billing and collection practices, and are still asking questions related to community benefit reporting and tax exempt status.

"Wisconsin is a national leader in providing information related to quality, safety and pricing in health care. And with our new community benefits initiative, we are well positioned to align with any efforts that Congress makes to require hospitals to use uniform definitions and provide annual public reports," Brenton said.

White papers on Wisconsin’s public reporting agenda, including CheckPoint, PricePoint and community benefits, were shared with the Board.

CheckPoint: Quality and Safety Reporting Continues to Advance

Chuck Shabino, MD, WHA’s senior medical advisor, paused as he introduced the CheckPoint agenda item to thank the Board, and WHA member hospitals, for their support of the program.

"The support from the WHA Board, and all members of this Association, is without precedent. It is unheard of to have 100 percent involvement in a voluntary public reporting program. The program itself has been dynamic, with new measures added as those that have been attained are deleted," Shabino said. "There is no doubt that our public reporting of pneumonia vaccination and smoking cessation counseling have had a positive impact," he commented.

WHA Vice President Dana Richardson gave a status report on the Association’s quality and safety agenda and provided information on the newest measures added late in 2005 and earlier this year. She also asked the Board for their input on new measures that are under development. Under consideration are composite measures that use heart attack, congestive heart failure, and pneumonia data to evaluate care at a case level.

WHA Community Benefit Survey Now Out to Hospitals: Deadline is May 31

The WHA community benefits survey that is being used to collect the financial, human and material resources that hospitals contribute to their communities was sent out to WHA members in late March. According to WHA Senior Vice President George Quinn, the response to publicly reporting this information has been positive, and WHA continues to provide hands-on assistance to the contact people who are completing the surveys.

WHA will also be helping hospitals identify and tell the human interest—personal—stories about people in the community who can relate how they have benefited from a service that is provided in the community by the hospital.

Council Reports

WHA Rural Council Chair Bill Bruce encouraged Board members to attend the Wisconsin Rural Health Conference June 21-23 at the Abbey in Fontana. He emphasized that the agenda would be of interest to urban hospitals, as well.

The Council on Finance and Payment Chair Richard Range said that Council has focused their attention on the INS 9 Rule, which is opposed by WHA. George Quinn indicated that WHA will be providing state fiscal and annual survey data to members.

Some of you have asked me about our dispute with Wisconsin Physician’s Service Insurance Corporation (WPS)…an issue that has grabbed some recent media attention, especially in southeast Wisconsin. Here’s our side of the story.

There is an effort by WPS to ignore the terms of its contract and carve out certain hospitals and physicians within our health system. This is essentially a contract dispute between Aurora Health Care and Wisconsin Physician’s Service Insurance Corp. But this is also a matter that goes well beyond one health system and one insurance company. All Wisconsin hospitals and clinics are potentially at-risk.

If WPS is successful, it opens up the very real prospect of insurers blocking individual physicians employed by rural hospitals or clinics from caring for their patients at that hospital or clinic. Regional health systems could find one of their hospitals or a physician group cut out of the insurance plan, limiting access for patients and physicians.

From our perspective, WPS signed a contract with Aurora, and then proceeded to violate that contract repeatedly by systematically excluding some Aurora hospitals from their plan. Aurora tried to resolve this matter with WPS over the course of two years, including mediation. When those efforts failed, Aurora filed a lawsuit alleging breach of contract. Quite simply, we believe this is all about living up to a contract willingly signed by two parties.

The crux of the issue is that WPS wants to be able to work with Aurora in a piecemeal fashion, contracting with some doctors and facilities and omitting others. If WPS is allowed by the courts to unilaterally break its contract, it has the potential to enable other insurance companies to follow suit and pick and choose which hospitals and clinics are part of a plan for any health organization in Wisconsin.

Contracts signed in good faith by provider organizations and insurers that include all hospitals and physicians in a health system promote competition because it increases choices and places those choices in the hands of the consumer, where it belongs. Consumers need to be able to make their health care choices based on quality, price, convenience, services provided, recommendations, technology, or other factors that may be important to individual patients.

As hospital leaders, this is an issue that could drastically alter our ability to provide care and access to patients. If WPS wins this suit…our patients lose.

Loren J. Anderson
Executive Vice President – South Region
Aurora Health Care

On Friday, April 14, Governor Doyle vetoed three remaining medical malpractice bills supported by WHA. AB 1071, authored by Rep. Curt Gielow (R-Mequon) and Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau), would have re-established a statute of limitations for medical malpractice cases brought by or on behalf of developmentally disabled minors, which would be the same as for other minors. AB 1072, also authored by Rep. Gielow and Sen. Fitzgerald, would have allowed juries and the court to consider evidence of third party payments when determining a plaintiff’s damages. Prohibiting this information could allow plaintiffs to recover expenses they never actually incurred. AB 1074, authored by Rep. Robin Vos (R-Racine), would have reduced the cap for attorney’s fees so that an injured plaintiff would be able to recover more of the award for injury.

WHA backed all three proposals and expressed strong concern with the vetoes.

"While we are very pleased with the enactment of the new cap on non-economic damages, these and other recent vetoes (see story on veto SB 578) by Governor Doyle leave much of the damage unrepaired," said WHA’s Eric Borgerding. "We will continue to work on these important bills, and I fully expect them to be back in 2007.

The Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services is proposing a revision of Wisconsin Administrative Code, HFS 157, Radiation Protection. The proposed revisions have been released for public review and comment. According to DHFS, the proposed revision to chapter HFS 157 accomplishes the following:

• Updates the radiation protection and regulatory requirements for radioactive materials to reflect changes in federal regulations.
• Updates the radiation safety requirements for x-ray producing devices to reflect new technologies, current federal regulation, and the input of an ad hoc advisory group representing a cross-section of regulated users.
• Revises 7 of the 42 radioactive material license fee categories to reflect lessons learned after 1.5 years as an Agreement state.
• Increases x-ray registration fees to ensure sufficient operating revenue for the x-ray registration and inspection program.

The public comment period continues through May 12, 2006 at 4:30 pm. Any comments on the rule should be sent to Paul Schmidt, Chief, Radiation Protection Section, P.O. Box 2659, Madison, WI 53701-2659, schmips@dhfs.state.wi.us.

With the input of a variety of WHA members and partnering organizations, an outstanding agenda has been developed for the 2006 Wisconsin Rural Health Conference. This year’s event is scheduled for June 21-23, 2006, at the newly renovated Abbey Resort in Fontana, located on beautiful Lake Geneva.

Keynote speaker Ron Bachman will open this year’s conference, when he addresses the trend of health care consumerism, what’s driving it, and what the results of consumer-driven health plans have been to date. Bachman worked closely with the White House and the IRS on the language and principles of the 2002 Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) guidelines, as well as working closely with Congress and the Treasury on Health Savings Account (HSA) legislation and regulations.

A variety of interesting and informational concurrent sessions, focused on rural health issues and governance issues will be offered throughout the conference, as well. The conference will close with a session focused on the current trends and recent developments in health care IT, presented by Bill Dwyer, senior vice president for Cerner Corporation, where he focuses on emerging industry trends and issues concerning patient care information technologies.

Leadership staff from small and rural hospitals, as well as board of trustee members, are encouraged to attend this event. The full conference brochure with registration information is currently available on-line at www.wha.org. It will also be included in WHA’s Friday Packet on April 28, so please watch for it.

Partners of WHA, Inc. (Partners), the non-profit, volunteer service organization affiliated with WHA, raised and donated a total of $2.91 million, through nearly 450 fundraising activities, and volunteered 1.63 million hours of service to Wisconsin hospitals in 2005, as reported by Linda Fish, Partners President, at the April 20 WHA Board meeting.

Partners is made up of volunteer and auxilian groups at 79 Wisconsin hospitals. As of December 31, 2005, Partners had 12,871 adult members and 1,368 teen volunteers. Teen volunteers contributed an additional 52,000 hours of service to their hospitals in 2005.

Partners awarded 573 scholarships to students seeking health care-related degrees in 2005, amounting to $536,000. This is an increase of 25 scholarships and $78,000 over the scholarships awarded in 2004.

The financial value of a hospital volunteer’s time has been estimated nationally at $17.55 per hour. At that rate, the Partners of WHA adult and teen volunteers donated a total of $29.5 million of their time and services to Wisconsin hospitals and health systems during 2005.

He is remembered for his kindness, sense of humor, and knowledge of Wisconsin hospitals. David Jaye, former president of Saint Joseph’s Hospital of Marshfield, led the Wisconsin Hospital Association as chairman of the Board from 1977-1978. He was active in the Association for many years, serving on several WHA committees during his tenure as a hospital executive. This week, WHA received the sad news that Jaye, 75, died in an automobile accident in Ashburn, Georgia on Saturday, April 15. His wife, Mary Anne, was in the accident with Dave and is recovering from her injuries.

David, who was president of Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Marshfield from 1969-1989, was a respected health care leader in Wisconsin. Warren Von Ehren, the first president of WHA, considered Dave to be one of his closest friends and a valued colleague.

"First and foremost, Dave was a real gentleman. He valued input from others, going so far as meeting with every WHA Council to seek their input so he could understand an issue from the rural and urban perspective, Von Ehren said. "Dave provided testimony many times in Madison at hearings on bills that would have an impact on hospitals and on their ability to serve their patients. He was always a great supporter of and believer in continuing education opportunities for hospital administrators."

Visitation is Monday, April 24 at Bolger Funeral Home in Minocqua from 4-7 p.m. Funeral services will be Tuesday, April 25 at Holy Family Catholic Church (formerly known as St. Patrick Church) in Minocqua at 11 a.m. (Bolger Funeral Home can be reached at 715-356-3200).

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