Virginia M. Burke has been named president and CEO of the Rhode Island Health Care Association (RIHCA). Burke brings to RIHCA extensive experience in the provision of health care and the laws that govern health care delivery. She graduated from Georgetown Law School and embarked on a law practice specializing in the representation of health care providers. Since 1994, she has been practicing in Rhode Island, representing nursing homes, hospitals, home health agencies and health professionals.

PBN: What do you most look forward to in your new position?

BURKE: When I was practicing as a health care attorney, my work day consisted of dealing with problems. In this new position, I will also have the opportunity to work on solutions.

PBN: As the population shifts to an older demographic, what steps can Rhode Island take to prepare?

BURKE: As a nation, we spent nearly $140 billion last year on long-term care. It’s difficult to see how the governmental programs that pay for the majority of this care can continue to do so in the future. Our current system lacks a robust market for private financing that could replace this public funding. It also provides few incentives for individuals to plan for future long term care costs.

We need to reward – through tax incentives and otherwise – those who make significant personal planning commitment to their future long-term care costs. We need to streamline the post-acute and long-term care delivery system. And we need to reform the Byzantine payment system that, at present, has 30 percent of nursing home residents subsidizing losses incurred by homes that take care of the 70 percent Medicaid-funded residents.

Safe and effective nursing home care cannot be left at the mercy of annual federal and state budget battles.

PBN: How will RIHCA continue to help develop the movement toward measuring and improving quality of care in health services?

BURKE: One of the most promising transformative changes in nursing home care is a cultural shift within nursing homes themselves, toward what is termed “resident-centered care.”

Nursing homes inherited an institutional model from the hospital industry. The departmentalized, task-orientation of the current institutional model can generate boredom, loneliness, and depersonalization for residents.

Since February 2006, I have been a member of Rhode Island Generations, a partnership made up of long term care stakeholders throughout Rhode Island, whose mission is to promote a person-centered care environment, rather than an institutionalized model of care for elders and the chronically ill residing in Rhode Island nursing homes. •