Ascension President and Chief Executive Officer Anthony R. Tersigni, EdD, FACHE, recently answered five questions for Becker’s Hospital Review, ranging from the decision to rebrand Ascension’s sites of care to the System’s primary goals for the next five year.
Tony tells Becker’s the time is right to co-brand sites of care with the Ascension name to make it easier for those we serve to navigate the healthcare system in a community “because now they understand we’re all connected.”
“We believe we’ve made enough inroads in safety, quality and high-reliability that we felt Ascension has developed a reputation of its own,” he says. “… Since co-branding the Ascension name with the names of our hospitals in our communities in advertising and on the web, the results have been outstanding. It's about making it easier for the people we serve to navigate our system within a particular community because they now understand we’re all connected. … we believe now is the time to position ourselves as the national system that we are.”
Looking ahead to the next five years, Tony says primary care and value-based care are primary goals.
“We want to continue to grow our primary care, expand access and continue to move toward value-based care,” Tony says. “We want to be able to take on risk in a way where we can move into first-dollar coverage so we can move the patient through the continuum of care. We promise healthcare that works, that is safe and that leaves no one behind — for life. For us to do that, we need to be able to put patients in the right setting for the right care at the right time. If we can take on risk and walk with our patients and their families through our clinically integrated systems of care, we believe we can keep them well. …
“We need to be the highest-quality, lowest-cost, best-outcome provider in every market that we’re in. Then regardless of what happens in Washington, D.C., we are going to be there for our patients and they’re going to want to seek us out.”
Click here to read the full article.