On health care, collaboration pays

In July, health leaders gathered in Tulsa at “Healthcare 3.0 and the Promise of Oklahoma” to talk about driving better health outcomes and strengthening the connections between entrepreneurship and public health. A handful of themes stood out:

• We need better access to primary care. That's the key to containing minor health risks before they develop into full-blown diseases or life-threatening conditions. Without primary care, our health care system is always responding to catastrophes. Making it easier for all people to access primary care could make a huge difference in health outcomes.

• We can't be stingy. Investing in primary and preventive care saves many more dollars down the road. The cost of primary care is minuscule compared with the cost of treating serious conditions and preventable diseases. Medicare's recent experiment with the Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative showed that paying for better primary care reduces spending on admissions, readmissions and emergency room visits.

• We need to address social determinants of health outcomes. In addition to cost barriers, many people can't get to the doctor because

they lack transportation or mobility, can't take time off work, live in remote areas, face language barriers that make it hard to understand their doctor, don't have a safe home, or lack access to good food. Each of those challenges can be solved.

• We need to use data better and more consistently. Imagine a patient with rising blood pressure and cholesterol levels. A doctor's advice to eat better and exercise more might get the patient's attention. But what if the patient were told: Your risk of a heart attack in the next 10 years just doubled from 5 percent to 10 percent? Data can give patients a much more detailed picture of their own health.

• We need more input from employers. Often, they are the people who pay for health care. They should have a bigger say in the discussion.

We are optimistic that the growing collaboration among Oklahoma's health care contributors will lead to continuing progress toward these goals. It's encouraging to see how much these folks really care about health care. As long as this group stays connected to each other and to others in our communities, there is good reason for hope.