A10 POST-BULLETIN / www.postbulletin.com Wednesday, December 17, 2008 POST-BULLETIN / www.postbulletin.com Xxxday, Xxx ##, 2008✩

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The world ofhealth care ischanging dramati-cally, and thatworld wasdescribed in detail

at a health care summit meeting inRochester recently.

The meeting was sponsored by theRochester Area Chamber of Com-merce and it was held at the MarriottHotel.

Principal participants were repre-sentatives of the Mayo Clinic and Olm-sted Medical Center.

Chris Gade, director of Mayo Clinic’sHealth Policy Center, was the mainspeaker. He outlined a number ofmajor changes that are needed to getthe best health care results for

everyone.He said four major steps are

required to build the health caresystem of the future.

They are:1. To create value by improving

patient outcomes, decreasing medicalerrors, reducing costs and reducingwaste.

2. To coordinate patient care serv-ices wherever and whenever they aredelivered through the use of electronicmedical records. Patients must par-ticipate actively in these services.

3. To reform the payment system inorder to improve health and minimizewaste. Payments should be based onimproved results, not simply on pro-viding specific treatments.

4. To provide health insurance for

everyone.He said the health care system must

make better use of scientific knowl-edge. To illustrate that need, he saidit now takes 17 years for scientificknowledge developed in the labora-tory to be used in patient care.

Another essential change will be touse information technology to maintainevery patient’s medical records. Thecurrent system of using paper recordsis not centralized and the records arenot accessible to physicians when theyare needed. If a patient seeks careaway from his or her home, electronicrecords can be accessed whereverthey are located.

The Mayo Clinic favors requiringall adults to purchase health insur-ance for themselves and their fami-lies. Government subsidies would helplower-income people to obtain insur-ance coverage. Employers could con-tinue to buy insurance for their

employees or give them stipends tocover the cost.

In developing its plan, Mayo Clinichas sought the views of 1,000 thoughtleaders and interviewed 1,400 patientsto obtain their opinions on all of theseissues. It also interviewed 400 patientsin nine U.S. cities to see if there wereany regional differences in health careneeds.

In the second half of the program,Lois Till Tarara, an administrator atOlmsted Medical Center, spoke aboutthe small “convenience clinics” whichhave been established in the city toprovide medical care for minor ail-ments that can be dealt with in asingle visit. Olmsted Medical Centerand Mayo Clinic both have establishedtwo of these clinics and others havebeen opened in retail centers aroundthe city.

Patients can visit these clinicswithout an appointment. Treatment

is provided by physicians’ assistantsand nurses, who work under the gen-eral supervision of physicians. Thefees for these treatments are relativelylow compared to the cost of standardmedical care.

Till said that the convenience clinicshave been very popular and 90 per-cent of the patients have expressedsatisfaction with the treatment theyhave received.

She expects the number of smallclinics to continue to grow.

A third speaker was Karen Erlen-busch, director of the Olmsted CountyUnited Way in Rochester. She told theaudience that her agency provideshealth insurance policies for all ofthe group’s nine full-time employeesas a reward for faithful service.

Bill Boyne is a retired editor and publisherof the Post-Bulletin.

Inresponse tothe Dec. 1column byPhil Araoz inopposition to

Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s greenjobs initiative proposal, therehas never been a moreimportant time to invest inour future.

As we face a severe eco-nomic crisis, solutions thatwill stimulate the economyand create jobs will alsobring long-term sustainabilityto our environment andeconomy.

Leaders such as Con-gressman Tim Walz, whorealize that Minnesota isblessed with renewableresources and are pushing fordevelopment, deserve ourpraise and support.

Our energy habits are nosmall part of the economiccrisis. America’s dependenceon fossil fuels is stalling oureconomy, threatening oursecurity, and fueling globalwarming.

Burning oil, coal, and gasfor homes, businesses andtransportation subjects thelifeblood of our economy towild fluctuations in price andis responsible for 80 percentof U.S. global warming pollu-tion. We spend twice as mucheach year on gasoline as wedid just five years ago —that’s an additional $200 bil-lion per year sucked out ofAmerican’s pocketbooks, withmuch of it sent to high-prof-iting Big Oil companies andunfriendly nations oversees.

Big Oil posts record profitsand lobbies against common-sense reform such as safer,cleaner, and more efficientcars that America drivers areclamoring for. Should weremain on our presentcourse, the energy challengesfacing the United States willonly grow in magnitude at atime when our economy ismore fragile than any periodsince the Great Depression.

We are at a crossroads, and

the decisions our leadersmake now will determinehow we rebuild our economy.Investing in clean, home-grown energy, such as windand solar and energy, is keyto improving our energy secu-rity, solving global warming,and jump-starting oureconomy.

President-elect BarackObama won the election onthe promise of a clean energyeconomy and now is pro-posing a stimulus packagethat invests in “the alterna-tive energy technologies thatcan free us from our depend-ence on foreign oil and keepour economy competitive inthe years ahead.”

“Drill baby drill” is not the

bold solution Americans havecalled for.

This great country hasenough renewable potentialto power the country severaltimes over. For example, thespace available on America’srooftops alone could hostenough solar panels to pro-vide about 70 percent of ourcurrent electricity needs.Concentrating solar power(CSP), also known as solarthermal power, on just 9 per-cent of the land area ofNevada could produceenough electricity to powerthe entire United States.

Contrary to the claims ofAraoz’s column, clean energytechnologies are proven andalready being employed. Sev-eral CPS projects in thesouthwest have been pro-ducing power for decades.

Interest in the technology isbooming and there are pro-posals from developers for 60gigawatts of CPS projects —twice the current electricalgenerating capacity in theentire state of California.New Jersey is already devel-oping offshore wind farmsthat will power more than800,000 homes every year by2020 and avoid 8 billionpounds of global warmingpollution.

Investors and businessesrecognize the future of cleanenergy. Oil tycoon T. BoonePickens is investing in windpower and calls for 20 per-cent of our energy from wind.Innovation leader Google hasalso pointed to clean energyas the next big thing and hassponsored a proposal toreplace all of America’s coaland oil-fired generators with

clean energy.The U.S. Conference of

Mayors estimates that thereare already around 750,000“green jobs,” building localeconomies across the country.After building a wind farm in2003 with turbines built else-where, Suzlon Energy inPipestone, Minn., opened awind rotor blade assemblyfactory in July 2006 thatemploys up to 275 skilledworkers.

A new report by the Centerfor American Progress esti-mates that, with a $100 billioninvestment in clean energyinfrastructure, we could see 2million jobs created in justtwo years, 37,429 of those inMinnesota. That’s four timesthe number of jobs as thesame investment in the oilindustry would bring. Gov.

Pawlenty recognizes thegreen job creation potentialin Minnesota and we’re gladto see him pushing for poli-cies to expand opportunitiesand put people back to work.

We applaud the leadershipof Congressman Walz, whohas been and is a championin solving our energy crisisand global warming. We sup-port him in his efforts toensure clean energy is a cor-nerstone of any effort torecover our economy.

It is vital for other leadersto recognize the assets Min-nesota holds in clean energyresources and help bring thejobs and development weneed to build a bright futurefor our state and the country.

Samantha Chadwick is an Asso-ciate with Environment Minnesota,an advocacy organization.

CommentaryBILL BOYNEletters@postbulletin.com

SAMANTHA CHADWICKletters@postbulletin.com

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Quotation in the news“Why is it, when the

whole world iswatching, you can’tchange your ways atleast for one day andlet democracy rule?”

— Ron Stephens, aRepublican state

representative in Illinois,after House Speaker Michael

Madigan canceled plans toconsider a special election to

fill Barack Obama’s senateseat.