You are receiving this e-mail from VHHA because you requested a subscription. For continued delivery of this e-mail version, please add [email protected] to your address book today. Please visit WWW.ISUPPORTVIRGINIAHOSPITALS.COM to add your name to the list of Virginians who value and appreciate the Commonwealth’s network of top-flight health systems, and who believe it is appropriate for policy makers to address challenges to health care providers’ stability. November 6, 2015 Articles: 1. Joint Commission on Health Care Recommendations on Graduate Medical Education Improvement 2. VHHA in the News 3. Virginia 2015 Legislative Election Recap 4. VHHA’s October-November FOCUS Examines Rural Hospitals and Communities They Serve 5. All Payer Claims Database Update 6. Plans Underway to Create Pro-Hospital Virginia License Plate 7. Research Corner: Scrutinizing Patients with Hip or Knee Replacements 8. March of Dimes Gives Virginia High Marks for Premature Birth Improvement 9. McNamee Joins VHHA as Vice President, Chief Financial Officer 10. Last Chance to Register for Virginia Nurses Association Interprofessional Conference in November 11. VHHA Members Offered Discount for Orlando (FL) Studer Conference 12. VHREF Upcoming Programs and Webinars 1. Joint Commission on Health Care Recommendations on Graduate Medical Education Improvement The Joint Commission on Health Care at its Nov. 4 meeting took action on eight staff recommendations to strengthen Graduate Medical Education (GME) in Virginia. The entire list of recommendations can be found at the JCHC Decision Matrix. The Commission adopted recommendations two through eight. As detailed in the JCHC Decision Matrix, the Commission staff has identified three policy options to address the needs of rural and underserved communities: Start-up funding for new residency programs; Start-up funding for programs that follow the Teaching Health Center GME Program model; and Ongoing funding for sole community hospital residency programs. Other policy options considered include updating Virginia’s Medicaid GME payment system, increasing Medicaid GME funding for needed specialties, increasing state appropriations for the Loan Repayment Program, workforce and GME data collection, and establishing a GME governance structure. Members of the Commission agree that Virginia’s current GME system is not sustainable and needs improvement. To that end, legislation and budget amendments will be introduced by JCHC members during the 2016 General Assembly session reflecting staff recommendations. VHHA formally responded to the recommendations presented by the JCHC staff; Association comments can be found in the JCHC Decision Matrix. Meanwhile, the Virginia Health Workforce Development Authority will survey hospitals and health systems to determine interest in developing a new GME program. – Jennifer Wicker Back 2. VHHA in the News VHHA is an active participant in conversations about public policy outcomes to protect and enhance the public’s access to high quality health care. That public engagement includes working to attract news coverage focusing on the issues affecting Virginia hospitals and health systems to help better educate the public and elected officials. In the past week, VHHA has been featured by multiple news organizations. Fresh news coverage of VHHA’s Virginia Hospitals: Our Lifeline campaign appeared in the Health Journal Magazine, which published a story about the local economic impacts of fiscal stress on hospitals. A story that appeared on WTVR, Richmond’s CBS affiliate, featured VHHA on the subject of health care policy and coverage access. VHHA was also included in two Virginia Business Magazine articles – one on the All Payer Claims Database and another on Virginia’s economic outlook. In addition to traditional media engagement, VHHA actively promotes hospital and health system good news stories through its Facebook and Twitter pages. We invite you to engage with VHHA on those platforms. – Julian Walker Back 3. Virginia 2015 Legislative Election Recap Virginia held its off-off-off year legislative elections Tuesday. After months of intense campaign politics, the overall numeric results were nearly identical to what they had been prior to the election. Republicans retained their narrow majority in the Senate, winning the same number of seats (21) they had entering Tuesday. Likewise, Democrats ended the campaign with control of the same 19 seats party representatives presently occupy. No Senate incumbent seeking re-election this year lost their seat and no seat held by one party was captured by the other. Republicans also maintained a firm grip on power in the House of Delegates. Democrats made a net gain of one seat, reducing the GOP majority in the 100-member House from 67 to 66 seats. Both chambers will have some new faces due to incumbent retirements and the outcome of a few nomination contests back in June. Significant focus in these elections centered on the Virginia Senate because control of that chamber was at stake. As a result, political parties, donors, and outside groups poured substantial sums of money (it is estimated the total eclipsed $40 million) into various Senate contests. While both sides invested significantly to influence the outcome, not every race was contested. According to the Virginia Public Access Project, 17 of 40 Senate seats were uncontested, and 62 of 100 House seats were uncontested. In the Senate, there are five new Republicans and two new Democrats. A headliner of the new Senate Republican class is Glen Sturtevant, a Richmond School Board member who won a Chesterfield County-centric district contest to replace retiring Sen. John Watkins, a Republican who advocated for the Marketplace Virginia plan to enhance health insurance coverage in Virginia. Sturtevant’s victory over Democrat Dan Gecker in a seat Democrats targeted as a potential steal scuttled the party’s hope of regaining control of the divided Senate. In the end, status quo won the day. Other Senate Republican newcomers include Dr. Siobhan Stolle Dunnavant (the sister of Virginia Beach Republican Del. Chris Stolle – he is also a physician), who replaces retiring GOP Sen. Walter Stosch, another Marketplace Virginia champion, in a Henrico County- based district; Amanda Chase replaces departing GOP Sen. Steve Martin in a Chesterfield area seat; Del. Bill DeSteph handily won his bid to succeed retiring Sen. Jeff McWaters (R) in a Virginia Beach area district; and former Legislative Aide David Suetterlein succeeds his boss, Sen. Ralph Smith, in district near Roanoke. Among Democrats, Del. Scott Surovell of Fairfax County matriculated from the House to the Senate by succeeding retiring Democratic Sen. Linda “Toddy” Puller; and Jeremy McPike outlasted Manassas Mayor Hal Parrish, the Republican nominee, in a multi-million dollar race to replace long- serving Sen. Chuck Colgan (D) as the representative of a Prince William County-based district. The new members-elect in the House of Delegates include seven Democrats and four Republicans. Democratic newcomers include Lashrecse Aird (Petersburg), Steve Heretick (Portsmouth), Paul Krizek (Fairfax County), Mark Levine (Fairfax County), and Marcia S. “Cia” Price (Newport News). Republican newcomers include Chris Collins (Winchester area), Nicholas “Nick” Freitas (Culpeper County), and Jason Miyares (Virginia Beach). (Republican Mark Dudenhefer is a past delegate returning to the legislature to represent a district encompassing portions of Stafford and Prince William counties.) Overall, the GOP claimed one House seat currently held by Democrats, while Democrats won two swing seats being vacated by Republicans. In each of those cases, the incumbent did not seek re-election to that seat this year. Both parties retained other open seats for which the party incumbent was not the nominee. – Julian Walker Back 4. VHHA’s October-November FOCUS Examines Rural Hospitals and Communities They Serve The October-November edition of VHHA’s FOCUS publication takes a closer look at the challenging economic plight of Virginia’s rural hospitals and the communities they serve. Rural hospitals are vitally important to their local communities as economic engines, major employers, and public health providers. Unfortunately, they face serious financial stress due to government decisions, funding cuts, and community demographics. Policy solutions that protect rural hospitals are necessary to preserve the stability of health care providers in communities outside Virginia’s population centers where a strong health care network is a key asset. We encourage you to read the current edition and share it among your networks. We also encourage you to visit www.ISupportVirginiaHospitals.com to learn more about the Virginia Hospitals: Our Lifeline public awareness campaign, and to sign up in support of Virginia’s local hospitals. – Julian Walker Back 5. All Payer Claims Database Update Virginia Health Information (VHI) now offers a new tool from Milliman called Query Express (QE) for use with data in Virginia’s All Payer Claims Database (APCD) on the MedInsight platform (see image below). MedInsight QE gives APCD subscribers robust capabilities to conduct database queries. Each user may create customized de-identified data sets* and then generate detailed queries using the created data sets. Additionally, set operations are provided in QE to allow users to join sets to create detailed unions or subsets. QE, in essence, allows the user to generate sophisticated queries, without coding