News / HFMA 2014: Finance leaders have role in meeting shared challenge

'Finance professionals need to be seen as proactive rather than reactive,' said Ms Cornicelli, chief finance officer of Sharp Metropolitan Medical Campus in San Diego. 'We need to be the people making sense of the future. Healthcare finance professionals are uniquely qualified to lead our organisations into the future.'

Ms Cornicelli said the transformation in US healthcare was very
similar to that in the NHS, driven by the same demographic changes, rising expectations and the need to harness new technology. But it was also going through major changes in how services are paid for. 'We are moving from basing everything on volume and we are now looking at the value we provide to patients and healthcare purchasers.'

This would mean moving away from episodic payment in favour of payments to manage the health of populations, with payments based on outcomes and performance..

The historically fragmented system is starting to see a move towards accountable care organisations where providers are 'more aligned'. However new payment models were still needed to support these new models of care.

There was also significant pressure to improve the transparency of pricing both for purchasers and patients

With continuing requirement s to eliminate waste and an ever changing political landscape, Ms Cornicelli said 'we are more similar than we are different'.