News Releases

Bill Ryan Discusses Changes in the Healthcare System on The Sound of Ideas

On Thursday, Jan. 14, The Center for Health Affairs’ President and CEO Bill Ryan participated in a discussion with other healthcare policy and economic experts on an episode of ideastream’s® The Sound of Ideas, which focused on changes in the healthcare system.

Joining the broadcast, hosted by The Sound of Ideas’ Mike McIntyre, was:

• Sarah Jane Tribble, healthcare reporter for 90.3 WCPN ideastream
• JB Silvers, professor of healthcare finance at Case Western Reserve University
• Martin Graynor, professor of economics and health policy at Carnegie Mellon University
• Matthew E. Levy, MD, president of Academy of Medicine of Cleveland and Northern Ohio 

The Sound of Ideas discussion focused on the trend of hospital consolidation, how it is transforming the way our healthcare industry operates and how those changes affect patients.

“I think one of the reasons that hospitals do merge and consolidate, and one of the positive benefits of those consolidations, has been the fact that some smaller community hospitals that might have gone away continue to survive, continue to prosper, continue to employ people within the community,” Ryan said. “It’s an economic exchange; healthcare is an economic exchange and there is going to be economic motives in that. I don’t know that there’s any real evidence that those economic motives take a primary seat to the notion of delivering quality healthcare.”

To listen to The Sound of Ideas’ full program, visit their website.