Boston Children's gets the go-ahead. I'm quoted

From the Boston Globe (Children's gets green light for hospital expansion, with conditions)

Massachusetts health regulators said Friday that Boston Children’s Hospital should be allowed to go forward with a $1 billion expansion project, a recommendation that seeks to support one of the state’s premier hospitals without undermining efforts to control medical spending.The staff at the Department of Public Health recommended approval of the plan to build an 11-story building in Longwood and an eight-story outpatient clinic in Brookline.

Here's my quote:

“DPH seems to be trying to satisfy everyone here, including taxpayers, health insurers, [Children’s Hospital], and competing hospitals,” said David E. Williams, president of Health Business Group, a Boston consulting firm. “The conditions DPH lays out may help achieve these goals, but it is hard for a government agency to manage the hospital market so tightly.”

Children’s plan to use its expanded capacity to draw patients from out of state and overseas is consistent with the hospital’s overall strategy. DPH appears to accept Childrens' explanation, but wants assurances that MassHealth patients will not be displaced and that Childrens will not attempt to lure well insured, healthier patients away from local competitors.

Ironically, DPH seems to be fighting the last war. After all it was Partners, not Children's, that expanded widely within the local market. Meanwhile Children's big recent acquisition was in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut not Massachusetts.

——-By healthcare business consultant David E. Williams, president of Health Business Group.