Leading Your Local Effort with Support from CHCC
CHCC understands that to reform our healthcare delivery system we must address the problems on several different levels: Behaviors have to be changed at every level - from the consumers to the employer plan sponsors to the health insurance plans all the way to the doctors and hospitals - to stop the unsustainable trend in healthcare cost increases and worsening outcomes.
Although policy issues related to healthcare can be addressed at the state and federal levels, to change the way hospitals and doctors provide and bill for services we must act at the local level to deal with the service providers directly. They are the only ones who can implement best practices that will result in better outcomes, saved lives and lower costs.
To that end, CHCC supports several local initiatives in some of our most important California markets.
Click on the links below to find out what we are doing to directly impact healthcare costs for you.
 Fresno Area Quality Care Initiative
San Diego Purchasers Cooperative
Los Angeles/Orange County
Some have asked about driving local efforts in other areas of California. CHCC's experience in this area is reminiscent of lessons learned from an early Antarctic explorer by the name of Sir Ernest Shackleton. Shackleton led a team of men across the South Pole in an expedition that launched in 1914. When his ship
(aptly named "Endurance") became stranded in the ice, was crushed and sank, starvation and death became real possibilities. However, Shackleton had a patient, flexible perspective that helped save the lives of all of his crew after a harrowing ordeal and journey. Lessons learned by Shackleton* could be as easily applied to what is needed when approaching any local effort.
These lessons are:
A. Never lose sight of the ultimate goal and focus on the short-term objectives. Rome was not built in a day and
these efforts take time. One must begin with small goals like meeting with relevant stakeholders and learning
more about the issues.
| B. Instill optimism and self-confidence, but remain grounded in reality. Making a difference with one small goal at
a time will build momentum. Don't be deceived into thinking that any effort will produce immediate results.
| C. Master conflicts, engage dissidents and avoid needless power struggles. Personality conflicts, power struggles
and politics need to be avoided as much as possible.
| D. Be willing to take a risk. "Business as usual" in these times is not an acceptable response to the poor quality
and high cost of healthcare we face currently.
| E. Never give up! There's always another move. Try not to be discouraged by slow progress or obstacles to
success. Initial efforts may need to be refined or changes before local providers are willing to meet and to
engage in this very important dialogue.
| To maximize the benefits of your participation in CHCC, it is recommended that local purchasers in regions across California unite to drive efforts to "collaborate with all health care stakeholders to promote high quality health care for all Californians."
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*Dennis T. Perkins, Margaret Holtman and Catherine McCarthy, Leading at the Edge: Leadership Lessons from the Extraordinary Saga of Shackleton's Antartic Expedition, Amacom (May 2000).
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"America clearly needs a clear health care reform agenda... We get care wrong now for diabetics well over half the time. Kids with asthma get right care barely half the time. People who are depressed get right care less than a third of the time. Care in America definitely needs to be improved. Care improvement will only happen if we... make the right changes in our care delivery systems, support infrastructure, and cash flow to make that goal a reality." 
"Where do premiums come from? Care costs. Medical costs and hospital costs basically create insurance premiums. So when American caregivers shift bad debt costs from covering unpaid care for uninsured people and increase their unit prices to insurers, the insurers automatically pass these cost increases along to everyone who buys insurance. That shifted amount now adds roughly $1200 to the premium costs of each family..." 