Host Bob Lee interviews Wanona “Winnie” Fritz, CEO & President, Carondelet St. Mary’s & Holy Cross Hospitals. Improving and standardizing care at its four area hospitals is the stated goal of Carondelet Health Network.
Fritz says her focus is on “team-building” in order to provide the best service to patients.
She says working in the health care field comes with challenges. She says the big question is how to provide “100 percent access.” She says it must be decided what exactly that means. She says the implication is that educational and preventive services would be included, not just “emergency” issues. She asks if “everything for everybody to be paid? Should everyone be able to get a transplant?”
Fritz says health care reform is really about redesigning the health care system. She says it’s less expensive to be preventive than to treat health issues that occur as a result of neglect. She says a patient who shows up for treatment at an emergency room cannot be denied care. She says that’s “reactive.” She says it doesn’t help someone stay healthy.
Fritz says 52-percent of a hospital’s budget is in personnel costs. 42-percent is for supplies. The remainder covers business expenses. She says equipment and buildings are part of a separate capital budget. She says new diagnostic and surgical equipment can cost millions of dollars. During fiscal year 2008, she says Carondelet Health Network provided $26,500,557, or 5.4-percent of net patient revenue, in community benefit to Southern Arizona.
