New Hospitals Collective Seeks to Improve Services on LI East End

An association of hospitals known as the Physician Hospital Organization (PHO) is being set up on the east end of Long Island. Each of the three hospitals in the region are forming the organization to share information that will help them lower insurance costs for doctors, streamline reimbursement from insurers, improve patient care, and enhance treatment practices. This collective will include 63 of the 200 practicing physicians on the East End.

To lower costs, the PHO will implement two goals: to use a computerized system to determine best practices and procedures, and to negotiate lower premiums from insurers.

All coordination efforts will take some time to achieve, but the first efforts are set to be conducted on diabetes patients. Data from the care given to all patients will be compared between the hospitals and then compared to national standards.

The vice chairman of the East End Health Alliance, a similar group, praised technology as a medical instrument and as a tool for his own association's collective efforts. However, he also mentioned that it challenged patients, who are often wary of the quality of the unknown inherent in new technology. Still, he praises the idea of the collective hospital system, particularly because he believes it will help hospitals navigate through the changing health care system as new federal laws kick in.

This collective organization has precedents elsewhere in New York City and in Boston.

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