UBMD

Dear Colleagues,

It is readily apparent that over the past year UBMD has become an increasingly collegial and collaborative team, a coherent group working together with considerable energy, drive and vision. But rather than reflect on the past, let's spend a moment taking stock of what the future might hold for "team UBMD," particularly in light of the initiatives currently in play by the federal government to restructure health care across the entire nation.

The federal health care reforms being considered have many facets, but can basically be distilled into changes that provide health care insurance coverage for many more individuals, i.e., those who are uninsured or underinsured; and systems that facilitate better communication and exchange of information coupled with the analysis of complex arrays of health care data. The goals—greater access to health care, particularly primary care and preventive care, improved quality, and decreased costs—are simple in principle, but exceedingly complex in implementation, leading to a high level of concern regarding the potential for unforeseen, unintended and highly detrimental consequences.

Buffalo and Western New York—and UBMD—are ideally positioned to participate as part of a pilot project in which some of the wrinkles in health care reform could be ironed out prior to a nation-wide rollout. Specifically, UBMD is far along with its plans for consolidation into a single entity, based in large part on a collective desire to implement a global electronic health record and robust electronic billing systems to create efficiencies in business functions, but more importantly to deliver high quality care with better patient access. As important, UBMD already is embedded in a health care system—Great Lakes Health—that is in the midst of transforming itself to create better access for our patient populations across the spectrum of primary care (e.g., patient-centered medical home model) to tertiary/quaternary care, as well as translational research and clinical trials (e.g., clinical service line consolidation and reconfiguration, creation of the Global Vascular Institute and Center for Clinical and Translational Research).

UBMD and our surrounding health care milieu may be "just what the doctor ordered" as a proving ground for the transformation of health care in the city, region and nation. If so, and if we are able to garner support for this concept and realize our initial goals, our future will be promising and bright.

Best regards,

David L. Dunn, MD, PhD
President and CEO, UB Associates