Our Philosophy - Educate, Empower, and Engage

Our philosophy is based on participant empowerment.  We feel we can help our participants achieve this by helping them to regain the power of choice.  This includes the knowledge to know what is available, where the alternatives lie, and having the means to execute decisions.

As strong believers in a free market, checked by public will and regulation, we work closely with private organizations as well as public sector entities.  We feel there is no commodity more valuable to a community and the economy that supports it, than the health and well being of its members and its institutions.

The means by which we execute our tasks to achieve our objectives is through education, technology, communication, and access.  This leads to opportunity.  We strive for clarity of message and view our participants as both consumers and providers of healthcare.  People are ultimately responsible for their own health and that of their loved ones.  To exercise this control, they have a right to know their options, but cannot if the tools of this overly complicated environment remain hidden except to a few.

Dr. Jay Wolfson, Associate Vice President and Professor of USF Health and board member of one of our sister organizations, the Tampa Bay RHIO recently said, "If you don't take control of your own destiny, someone else will."

We feel it is important for people to be actively engaged in their choices if they so wish.  We also respect the choice of those who are ok with leaving this to trusted institutions and individuals.  We support all the steps in between as well. 

There is a constant process of checking and adjusting the balance of control in all endeavors.  Free enterprise leads to innovation and fair pricing but left unchecked tends toward monopoly.  Giving too much control away from the individual ultimately leads to inefficiency and over-control.  By keeping a balance between public and private efforts and insuring our governance reflects both profit and social good, the RHIO hopes to strike this balance.

The consumer is responsible for approximately 70 percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product.  This represents the entire revenue of the country and the value of all goods and services.  Healthcare expenditures are approaching 20 percent of GDP.  It would appear that this very significant part of our economic engine be given a say about what form it should take, how it is funded, and how it is managed.   Tax revenue supports a major part of government involvement in healthcare and its reimbursement.  This money represents the productivity of our collective labor and commerce.  We have the right to manage it.

On Measuring Social Good and Quality

In a free society, needs and wants and supply and demand are very linked to cost and price.  Among other things, price reflects value.  Up to now, social good has not been easily quantified nor has it been capable of being measured and qualified.  By acting as an intermediary with our participants and our partners, we strive to bridge the gap between government, research, consumer, employer, payer, and provider organizations

On Standards of Service

It is hoped that by adopting our business model that standards of excellence will be most met.  We feel quality is a key to the service we offer through the products and services of our partners.  Our partners' products and services stand or fall by the demand of the consumers who buy them and use them.  We try to vet our partners but only the unfettered demand for their services determined by an un-coerced customer base, regulated by current business law and commonly accepted business practices with strong consumer protection guidelines, will prove them out and will keep them focused on constant and changing improvements and new products and services.

On Profit, Business, Savings, and Investment

Profit isn't bad.  The ability to make profit is what drives investment and innovation, makes prices lower, and fosters competition.  We are all investors in our healthcare system and as investors, we are owners.  We all have stakes in this.  As owners, we have responsibility to be engaged with the management of our investments.  We cannot leave it to someone else unless we consciously know we are and make that choice with knowledge.  Even by doing this, we are engaged.  The results will always reflect themselves in our personal lives through the quality of healthcare we receive. 

We also strongly believe in savings and the ability of individuals to manage and direct their own funds toward choosing and utilizing optimal healthcare coverage as determined by them.  We feel Health Savings Accounts (HSA's) are good tools to manage healthcare dollars, save for the future, and pass on wealth and security to our offspring and families.  We work closely with Banks and other entities that offer HSA's and make it easier to link all the parts together.  This helps the consumer to build a comprehensive healthcare financial profile that is best for them as determined by them.

On Entrepreneurship

Investors are driven by the want to maximize and/or preserve wealth.  There comes a point when some are willing to strike a balance between saving wealth or taking risks to maximize it. This is their choice.  If they are prevented from doing this, they will not participant or will participant in other activities, other industries, or even invest in other countries they feel allows them to achieve their financial goals.  The entrepreneur is a very important part of our system.  They form the springboard for innovation.  They invest and are willing to take on risk but only if their chance of realizing a higher return than doing nothing exists.  Return is a subjective measure and is defined differently by many.  We cannot stifle the drive that keeps entrepreneurs invested in our system.  The need to govern must be tempered with the need to keep opportunity alive.

On Funding

The three organizations that make up the RHIO are supported by many means such as memberships, pledges, brokerage fees, donations.  We also realize revenue from profit; capital appreciation; private and public placements; partnership agreements, strategic relationships, and contracts with other firms; and venture capital.  We apply for and, through the Foundation, will offer grants. 

Our Foundation (or Membership), when formed, will accepts gifts and donations and offer federally tax exempt charitable giving opportunities to our donors, supporters, and our community.  By doing this, we offer a way for individuals and institutions to invest in the health care of their local community and local healthcare entities that partner or participate with the RHIO.  You, as our served community and as the stakeholders and owners of our entity, make your local healthcare as good as you want it to be.  Your support makes it better than going somewhere else while giving the positive experience and the means to donate to a worthy charitable cause.

On Security, Privacy, and Confidentiality

As with our overall theme of empowerment and personal responsibility, we recognize the implicit charge of a RHIO to insure all aspects of security are addressed.  We fully adhere to and support all HIPAA requirements and will protect your health information to the limits and to the extent of the law. 

At the same time, we will not force an overzealous security process on our participants in areas that have utility but are not within the realm of Protected Health Information (PHI) unless they choose to have it that way.  The management team does not profess to know better than our participants regarding the level of security they wish to have in order to make use of and receive benefit from the use of the RHIO.  We do not feel we know what is best for them and we will not make a system so tight that none can use it.

On Payer Inclusion

Our healthcare system has evolved to its current state from specific roots.  The insurance industry, sometimes known as the payer community, is an integral part of the current system and cannot be left out.

Private insurers make up a large part of the mechanism that makes up our healthcare system today.  In addition, the Federal Government and the State Governments, through their Medicare and Medicaid organizations, also take on the role of payers when the need arises.

A large population of uninsured exists in the country as well.  We will work closely with Charity organizations that service the uninsured and those clinics within the health department that work with all of these classes.  This includes the underinsured and the newly unemployed population who suddenly find themselves with no coverage for themselves or their families after years of healthcare security.

On the Architectural Approach

The SunCoast RHIO follows an architectural approach to support all present functions, interactions with outside organizations and products, outside functions, and future offerings.  It also defines ways we can easily discontinue one offering or one participant and replace it with others or not as conditions dictate.

An architecture is a useful way to handle many disparate activities and has been used in many industries.  Simply stated, an architecture is made up of some parts that are unchangeable (relatively) and has defined methods to allow other changeable parts to work.  This is done within a defined structure.  A bridge, a machine, a highway, and a business all follow an architectural approach.  (A recent comment by a renowed doctor likened us to a Grand Central where different offerings, not unlike trains, come into one place and are rerouted to others so passengers can get where they want without caring about the make of the train.) The structure of a bridge is constant and the rules for cars to cross it are determined by weight and size (rules, laws, policies, and standards) but pay no attention to how the car looks, the riders, their belongings, or the speed they cross at as long as they stay within a defined range.

A machine also follows a similar pattern.  A plastics mold plant uses a machine that requires only maintenance and fuel and a defined way of putting in raw materials. However, the people who operate it may change everyday or the machine may make some items for one group and another for others. The demand for the costs and prices of the products produced and what the products will be change constantly with the changing demands of the customer base.  The key is in the standardization of the common components while enabling those that change to change freely as long as they adhere to some minimal and consistent rules in order to take part.

The RHIO has defined architectural ways to interface with other networks so that the end user doesn't need to worry about this.  We normalize and act as a clearing house to many processes and product offerings this way.  This includes vendor EHR offerings to the connectivity of different and diverse HIE's (See "What is a RHIO" tab), to insurance products, news reports, and security modules.  Examples of architectural components the RHIO employs include a security architecture, a product development architecture, a product maintenance architecture, a consumer access portal architecture, a disaster recovery architecture, and a back up architecture.  We have modules for grants, networks, audit trails, and accounting.  This is a proven approach and we feel works well to support the diverse needs and make up of our customer/participant base.