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UB plays key role in health care agreement
By JOHN DELLACONTRADA
Contributing Editor
In a scene reminiscent of a Hollywood courtroom thriller, the contentious debate over how to create a new, UB-aligned, health care system in Western New York came to a dramatic close Monday when state Supreme Court Judge John Curran announced an agreement between Erie County Medical Center and Kaleida Health.
David Dunn, vice president for
health sciences, speaks during a press conference announcing the
historic health care agreement. To Dunn’s right is Erie County
Executive Chris Collins; to his left is Robert Gioia, chair of the
Western New York Healthcare System board.
PHOTO: John DellaContrada
About 100 health care professionals, administrators, lawyers and reporters gathered in state Supreme Court in Buffalo to hear Curran’s announcement. The agreement, which resolved a yearlong impasse on how to begin consolidation of ECMC and Kaleida services, paves the way for creation of centers of medical excellence, including the construction a new heart-vascular center on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. The state Health Department must validate the agreement. An announcement is anticipated by week’s end.
With the agreement, UB’s five health science schools, including the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, will be able to better conduct its mission of research, teaching and clinical care, according to David Dunn, UB vice president for health sciences.
“UB will now see its programs flourish and grow at a variety of hospital sites,” Dunn said at a news conference announcing the historic agreement. “The events today will allow us to build a vibrant, multi-hospital campus health care system for Western New York in which clinical services are consolidated at one site or another through a deliberate, physician-led, clinical planning process,” he said.
The agreement gives members of the state-appointed Western New York Healthcare System (WNYHS) board the authority to create an integrated health system that will enhance physician training and advance clinical research. The board includes representatives from UB, ECMC, Kaleida and the community.
The agreement also empowered a physician steering committee to recommend changes in clinical services and creation of new or expanded services. The physician committee is made up of 10 physician leaders from ECMC, Kaleida and UB.
Dunn and Curran credited the physicians with providing the leadership needed to reach the resolution. In an unusual move, the physicians assembled at UB on Sunday for a daylong meeting arranged by Curran to hammer out the deal and resolve litigation. Also in attendance at the mediation were ECMC CEO Michael Young; Kaleida CEO James Kaskie; Dunn; UB President John B. Simpson; Erie County Executive Chris Collins; Michael Cain, dean of the UB medical school; and members of the WNYHS board, including chair Robert Gioia.
“The group of 10 outstanding physicians spoke up and made it clear what they wanted,” Dunn said. “It’s not the bricks and mortar in the hospitals that create strong clinical programs; it’s the physicians, nurses and other health care professionals who do so.”
Simpson and Dunn also played major roles in brokering the accord as members of the WNYHS board, appointed by a state commission on health care facilities to create a health care system that includes UB, ECMC and Kaleida Health.
The move toward consolidation became tied up in litigation last year soon after the board’s appointment in September. As the state-imposed June 30 deadline for hospital consolidation approached, the stalemate threatened receipt of a $65 million state grant for the heart-vascular center. Moreover, it appeared the community would lose an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a world-class health system.
“We came to the brink. People held their views to the end. But the physicians of Western New York have spoken in a way that means everyone can now move forward,” Dunn said.
The members of the physician steering committee are Yogesh Bakhai, Lawrence Bone, Merril Dayton, Steven Dubovsky, Evan Evans, Kevin Gibbons, Katie Grimm, James Reidy, Alan Saltzman and Stanley Schwartz. All of the physicians, except Grimm, are UB faculty members and each is affiliated with Kaleida or ECMC.
Resolution of the impasse received another big incentive earlier this month from prominent local business leader and UB alumnus Jeremy Jacobs, chair of the UB Council and chairman and CEO of Delaware North Companies. Jacobs’ $10 million gift to UB, the largest in university history, will be used to retain and recruit world-class researchers, clinicians and physicians to UB and the Western New York health care community. The gift is dependent on the building of a heart-vascular center of excellence in Buffalo.