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Association profile: The Missouri Hospital Association

ST. LOUIS — While speaking on behalf of its members in Jefferson City and Washington, D.C. is a large portion of what the Missouri Hospital Association does, Daniel Landon, senior Vice President of Governmental Relations, said the Association strives to “go beyond advocacy.”

Daniel Landon, Senior Vice President of Governmental Relations
Daniel Landon, Senior Vice President of Governmental Relations

Landon said the Association’s mission is to help its 152 members and hospitals provide the best services for its patients, and they strive to do that through multiple means.

“Continued education, collecting and processing data and the like are some of the other things we work toward,” he said. “We’re broader than advocacy, though many of our member’s primary reason for getting involved is advocacy in Jefferson City and [Washington] D.C.”

During the 2013 legislative session, Landon said the organization had a busy few months. Among the top issues he said they were involved with include medical malpractice changes and the largely discussed topic of Medicaid. Landon said they advocated and discussed reform and the implementation of federal dollars into the state. The Republican-controlled leadership and majority of the General Assembly shut down the more than two-dozen vehicles that representatives and senators used to try and make that expansion a reality for Missouri.

Outside of advocacy, Landon said the Association works to keep members “ahead of the game” through continued education about the changing environment within health care — regulatory, clinical, administrative and anything in-between.

Landon pinpoints “quality improvement” as an example of the clinical-related issues they consistently educate on in a two-fold process.

“First, we help hospitals learn how to prevent readmissions that aren’t necessary,” Landon said. “If a patient comes back within 30 days, that’s a readmission. Sometimes, that’s not necessary and could have been alleviated or eliminated. The more we can do that, the more we can avoid hospitalization that isn’t necessary.”

The second part of the process is the reduction of early elective deliveries, he said.

“There’s significant research that babies not going to full term, that are born before 37 weeks on elective delivery, have worse outcomes and end up costing more money, especially to programs like Medicaid,” he said, adding that it’s the Association’s hope that through trickle-down communication, the patients ultimately will learn about the importance of carrying their child to full-term if at all possible.

During the legislative interim, Landon said the organization holds its annual conference during November for members, and its annual summer program, the Administrative and Trustee Forum, where they provide speakers who talk about innovations in health care. He said the Forum attendees are usually hospital executives and out-of-state hospitals, which means those that aren’t in the main metropolitan areas of Missouri.

“We do a lot to focus our attentiveness on our member’s needs,” Landon said, adding that they do a satisfaction survey every year for members. “They seem to be happy with services and our level of professionalism, but we’re still always trying to improve that and respond to their changing needs.”

Employing 85 people full-time, Landon said the Association tries to be an outlet for hospitals to come to in order to work through their issues, whether it be financing, inspections or anything else they’re faced with.