Dear members and colleagues,

This issue of CASA Newsletter presents to you with topics of current guideline of the anticoagulants vs regional anesthesia and the introduction of honorary member, professor Fun-sun Yao.

1.Current Antithrombotic Drugs vs regional Anesthesia is contributed by Chairs of CASA regional committee. 

Chair, Jiabin Liu, Harbin Medical University, China; PhD. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN; Resident, Penn State Univ. Hershey Med. Center, Hershey, PA; Fellow in regional anesthesia, Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, NY; Assistant Professor, The University of Pennsylvania, PA.

Vice chair, Jinlei Li, BS, Beijing Medical University; MD, Mcgill University Faculty of Medicine, Canada; PhD, State University of NY at Buffalo; Resident and fellow in regional anesthesia, Yale University, CT. Assistant professor, Yale University, CT.

        1).  All health care is moving from Fee for Service to Pay for Performance

            A.  Compensation will no longer be centered solely on volume, increasingly value will be a driving factor

            B.  Alternatively:  “Quality impacts reimbursement"

       2).  All health care is moving from acute care provision to diversified and integrated health care delivery systems

            A.  The primary goal of health care systems is to move from episodic care to population health care management

            B.  The volume of procedures performed is less valued than preventing the need for  expensive procedures

            C.  This is driven not only by insurers and the government, but increasingly by industry (e.g. Intel, Ford)

            D.  “Triple Aims” will be the mantra (lower costs, better care, better population health)

       3).  Health care will no longer be centered on hospitals and physicians, but on health care delivery system

             A.  Capitation and bundled payments are inevitable

             B.  Non-physician health care providers will be increasingly incorporated into the delivery system

      4).  IT systems will become increasingly more important and change from hospital / physician centered to total  system integration

              A.  Ultimately we will have a “HAL” that monitors all aspects of every patient’s health

      5).  Health care delivery systems will increasingly buy or contract out services instead of owning assets and producing services themselves

      6).  Integration of physicians and hospitals will be a key element in health care system evolution

          A.  Employment

          B.  Formalized collaborative efforts such as joint ownership of an Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC)

          C.  Less formal unions such as cooperatives that can negotiate as a group

Welcome to make comments on the issue.

Happy April fool day!

　

David Yue Tang, MD

President, CASA

Vice chair, Dept of Anesthesia

Mercy General Hospital, Sacramento, CA
　

PS.

2. Welcome all members to submit their articles regarding their practices, meetings, or lives. Editorial board will selectively publish in the Newsletter.

3. If you have questions and suggestions about the articles in the Newsletter, please write back. We are open to all questions and suggestions.