Global Hospital Budgets in Maryland: When Economics and Altruism Align

“We had more imaging facilities than we really needed. Plus our ER was really crowded. So under a global budget we shut down one of our three imaging centers and converted it into a patient-centered medical home to reduce our ER volume.”

I wanted to pinch myself. Was this the fever dream of a crazy-eyed, hopeless delivery system reform devotee or was I really hearing a hospital executive say this? And how could he get away with it? Was he working hard to wreck his hospital’s finances and put himself out of a job?