LANSING – Olga Dazzo, Governor-elect Rick Snyder’s choice as Department of Community Health director, said Friday the state faces both large challenges and opportunities in changing the direction of health care and its cost. But she also said the state would continue to implement its portion of the new national health care law, especially those provisions that could help save money and lives.

A chief example of that is the push to get patient records set up electronically. Not only would electronic records “take tremendous cost out” of the system, but they could save lives, Dazzo said. With electronic records, a patient’s records would be available across the nation, she said at a press conference. So if, for example, a Michigan resident is injured in Florida emergency room, physicians in the Sunshine State could access the patient’s records in the Wolverine State and “save that life.”

While many new Republican administrations across the nation are pledging to oppose the federal health care law, and Attorney General-elect Bill Schuette has promised to continue Michigan’s lawsuit against it, Dazzo said the state would review the different aspects of the law. That will take further study, she said, but there will likely be some good things in the law for Michigan and others that are no so good.

Snyder praised his choice for the post as understanding that the state will not have to necessarily cut the level of health care to save money. “Olga understands that the decisions she makes will directly impact the well-being of Michigan’s most vulnerable citizens, and she will always have an eye toward delivering services more efficiently so those who need treatment are able to get it.”

Since announcing the executive group department concept several weeks ago, Snyder was asked into which group DCH would be placed and who would be the group’s director. Those decisions were not yet made, he said, though “there are some natural affiliations you can look at. The focus will be people and their families. So you can look at things like human services clearly would be associated.”

Dazzo, 60, is currently CEO of Health Reform Innovations. She had been vice president of Jackson Health Plans in Miami, Florida, and prior to that CEO of Physicians Health Plan in Lansing. She also served as a trustee at Ferris State University from 1998 to 2006.

A native of Cuba, Dazzo and her brother were evacuated from the island to the United States as part of an enormous effort to get children out of the country shortly after the communist takeover. “I was there for the Bay of Pigs and here for the Missile Crisis,” she told reporters. Her parents were able to join she and her brother some nine months later.

It was too early to say what kinds of program changes the state would need to examine to control costs, though she said a report was being prepared on fraud and abuse in Medicaid that the state would examine.

There were some things individuals in the state could do to live healthier lives and cut down on some needed medical procedures, Dazzo said. For example, state residents need to exercise more and lose weight.

But she was uncertain if Medicaid recipients should have receipt of their benefits tied to behavioral changes. Though legislative Republicans have called for those policies, Dazzo said that needed further study.

She promised, however, the state would find ways to save money. “If we really set our head to it, we’ll find it,” she said.

This story was provided by Gongwer News Service. To subscribe, click on Gongwer.Com

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