Rural group focuses funds on education - Coalition Report - Valley Health Care Coalition, West Lebanon, New Hampshire

Business & Health, Nov, 1992 by Rosalind Resnick

Stung by a recent drop-off in funding, the Valley Health Care Coalition, in West Lebanon, N.H., is refocusing its strategy to continue providing its members with the tools they need to educate their employees and battle rising medical costs.

Smaller than many of its counterparts in urban areas elsewhere in the nation, the Valley Health Care Coalition is also poorer: its current annual budget has been slashed to $54,000, down from $75,000 last year. Because most of its members are companies with fewer than 100 employees, the group has had to rely heavily on private and government grants. And because the coalition's 124 members include not only employers, but hospitals, insurers, and doctors, the group has focused its efforts on hosting nonadversarial educational programs.

"Like the rest of New England, both New Hampshire and Vermont have been hard hit by the recession," says Patricia Brent, a coalition board member and vice president of planning and services at Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital, an 82-bed acute care facility in Lebanon, N.H.

Funding is cut

The coalition's problems worsened in February when a $20,000 grant from the New Hampshire Municipal Association-Insurance Trust in Concord, N.H., was not renewed, says Cary Tall, the coalition's former director. (The coalition has since eliminated its fulltime director's position to cut costs.) Unable to find another source of funding, the coalition also decided not to seek two additional $5,000 grants. As a result, the coalition was obliged to postpone a data collection program on acute-care hospital utilization.

The coalition turned its focus to inexpensive educational programs. Some of the coalition's less costly projects have drawn a favorable response from its employer members. Sally McEwen, a coalition board member and vice president and personnel officer Mascoma Savings Bank of Lebanon, N.H., which employes 100 workers, says the coalition has helped her gather information on health insurance benefits and even assist the company in getting data on its own claims experience rating. The coalition's benefits survey showed her the types and level of benefits that other local employers were providing.

Founded in May 1986, the Valley Health Care Coalition traces its roots to 1983 when business leaders from around the twin state area discovered they shared many concerns about rising health insurance costs. Local employers, providers, and insurers from both New Hampshire and Vermont got together in 1984 to set goals. Two years later, the coalition's Data and Education Committees launched five different programs: education, hospital data collection, a health benefits survey of local employers, legislative proposals to collect and analyze outpatient data, and a public forum for discussing health care concerns.

Ambitious plans

But, despite the coalition's ambitious plans, not all of its projects garnered the ethusiastic support of the group's members. Coalition co-chair Couch, who is also director of human resources at Hypertherm Inc., a 300-employee Hanover, N.H., manufacturer that makes metal-cutting equipment for the welding industry, says the utilization data the coalition collected were never fully used by the group's employer members.

The reason: Even if the numbers showed, for example, that a certain hospital could be cutting its lengths of stay or Cesarean-section rates, there were few other facilities where employees could go.

"At this point, I'm not ready to go over to Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital and say, 'Reduce the number of C-sections, or I'm sending my employees elsewhere,'" says Couch.

With its sights set on education, the Valley Health Care Coalition has several seminars planned for the coming months, including programs on women's health care, long-term care, and nutrition. New programs may include setting up wellness and employee assistance programs.

Nevertheless, Couch cautions, such projects may not bear fruit for some time. "We don't want to invest any money in any products that we're not sure are viable," she says.

Rosalind Renick writes about coalitions for B&H.