Q&A with Dr. Kim Williams, American College of Cardiology President
by Sean Ruck, Contributing Editor | March 28, 2016
From the March 2016 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
HCB News: What are the main initiatives you’re championing as president?
KW: I have worked primarily on three of our six strategic platforms. We began with advocacy for payment reform, as the Medicare sustainable growth initiative was flawed and prescribed yet another cut in payment. If that had gone through, wealthy practices may have survived, but those serving the underprivileged wouldn’t have, and access to care would be impossible for many. We partnered with others inside and outside of medicine and we were able to get the law repealed. The new law, MACRA (Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015) will focus on the quality of care given, and fee-for-service will be going away and replaced by quality metrics associated with payment.
Second, has been a focus on transformation of care from a volume basis to value that is measurable. We need to have our members to be at the center — not the recipients — of the changes. Also, if everyone is performing high-quality work, we do not want physicians penalized. Because we have training guidelines, treatment guidelines, appropriate use criteria and existing quality measures, we hope that we can help design quality payment models that can help other specialties as well as our own.
The third principle surrounds initiatives in population health. I like to say that our goal is to put ourselves out of business by focusing on prevention of cardiac events, not just treatment. We have many examples in cardiology of treatment successes, such as decreasing door-to-balloon time for heart attacks, beta-blockers and ACE inhibitors for heart failure, and so many more. But we really need to focus more on prevention. We’ve been doing extremely well at mopping up the floor, but it’s time we turn off the faucet, with medication adherence, improving diet and exercise. Again, our mission is transforming cardiovascular care and improving heart health. This includes prevention.
HCB News: What are the biggest challenges facing your members today?
KW: I would say the biggest challenge is the impending difficulty of implementing the quality metrics outlined above that will come very quickly. While electronic prescribing is going pretty well, we have further to go to get electronic health records that are interoperable. Another challenge is making sure that folks aren’t suffering from burnout, and are continuing to provide quality care that is measurable. If we’re not able to do that we’re concerned, because there are many physicians — some cardiologists included — that are overwhelmed by the requirements. We need to maximize time spent with the patient and be more efficient with documentation.
HCB News: What are the main initiatives you’re championing as president?
KW: I have worked primarily on three of our six strategic platforms. We began with advocacy for payment reform, as the Medicare sustainable growth initiative was flawed and prescribed yet another cut in payment. If that had gone through, wealthy practices may have survived, but those serving the underprivileged wouldn’t have, and access to care would be impossible for many. We partnered with others inside and outside of medicine and we were able to get the law repealed. The new law, MACRA (Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015) will focus on the quality of care given, and fee-for-service will be going away and replaced by quality metrics associated with payment.
Second, has been a focus on transformation of care from a volume basis to value that is measurable. We need to have our members to be at the center — not the recipients — of the changes. Also, if everyone is performing high-quality work, we do not want physicians penalized. Because we have training guidelines, treatment guidelines, appropriate use criteria and existing quality measures, we hope that we can help design quality payment models that can help other specialties as well as our own.
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HCB News: What are the biggest challenges facing your members today?
KW: I would say the biggest challenge is the impending difficulty of implementing the quality metrics outlined above that will come very quickly. While electronic prescribing is going pretty well, we have further to go to get electronic health records that are interoperable. Another challenge is making sure that folks aren’t suffering from burnout, and are continuing to provide quality care that is measurable. If we’re not able to do that we’re concerned, because there are many physicians — some cardiologists included — that are overwhelmed by the requirements. We need to maximize time spent with the patient and be more efficient with documentation.
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