Growth, risk seen for health-care industry

Rapid growth was predicted for the re- gion's health-care industry Friday as 250 business leaders dined on hash browns, bacon and eggs.

Health food? Decidedly not.

"How many of you did not know the breakfast was high in saturated fat?" teased Dr. Deb Harper, when asked how much was being done in preventive health care. "I scarfed mine down."

Harper, president of the Spokane County Medical Society, and four other experts spoke at the Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce event at Decades Banquet Facility in the Valley.

They told of:

* New medical devices that cost significantly more, but aren't significantly better than what they replaced.

* A spiderweb of regulations that cost hospitals millions of dollars to obey.

* Charity care as what one hospital executive called "our fastest growing line item."

* The need for state and national leadership on health-care financing and reform.

Paul Sommers, senior research fellow at the University of Washington's Northwest Policy Center, said Northeast Washington boasts the state's densest concentration of health-care providers.

Spokane County's health-care industry employs more than 20,000 people, who earn $550 million annually, he said.

Between now and 2008, the industry will grow more than 2 percent a year, Sommers said, faster than any other industry.

To keep up with growth and retirements, the region annually will need 160 new registered nurses, 88 home health aides, 79 nursing aides and 34 dental assistants.

Tom White, chief executive officer of Empire Health Services, which runs Deaconess Medical Center, commented on the pace of change.

"Our change cycle used to be five years," he said. "Now it's six months."

Competition comes from outside the county as well as inside, White said. For example, Spokane may lose 100 patients a year to Wenatchee's new Heart Center, which opened last year at Central Washington Hospital.

Rapid change means risk, he said.

"You're betting millions of dollars on new technology and new plans," White said. "If your volume doesn't come in or if your competition gets the technology first, your new technology is now a boat anchor."

White predicted inflation due to work force shortages, early adoption of new technologies as hospitals try to keep their edge, increasing online connections among health-care providers and loss of some hospitals and other health facilities.

"Maybe not (closure) as a facility," he added, "but a change in their mission."

Mike Wilson, chief operating officer of Sacred Heart Medical Center, said hospitals statewide last year wrote off 40 percent of their $11.1 billion in charges. The uncollected amount is due to federal health insurance caps, negotiated contracts and charity care.

By 2020, Wilson predicted, the county's demand for health care will increase 47 percent due to the needs of aging Baby Boomers and population growth.

Harper told a story of a Spokane doctor's heroism. In 1983, Spokane neonatologist Carl Bodenstein reported several deaths associated with E-Ferol, an intravenous vitamin used to treat premature infants, despite being threatened with a lawsuit by the manufacturer.

Such dedication is needed to reduce medical errors caused by system problems, she said.

"To me, it's a scandal and an outrage that laypeople in the community are not forcing us to do that," she said. "Put the pressure on us to keep us going, to keep us honest."

Joanna Ellington, director of biomedical development for Washington State University-Spokane, said doctors and nurses have good ideas that could be turned into money-makers.

Spokane needs management experience, infrastructure and financing to turn good ideas into businesses.

"It's OK to make money off our ideas," she said.

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