Hawaii has been a national leader when it comes to providing health care insurance to its residents. With our prepaid health care act, Hawaii has one of the lowest percentages of uninsured residents in the nation, and our premium rates are also among the lowest.

In spite of this, Hawaii faces the same challenges as the rest of the nation when it comes to fragmented health care, shortages of physicians, sustainability of our health care system and the ability of employers and consumers to pay for it. Hawaii’s health care system is challenged. In fact, as we’ve seen with Hawaii Medical Centers, it is fragile at best.

At Hawaii Pacific Health, we have known for years that with or without national health care reform, we need to make significant changes in how we provide health care to our patients. Over the past eight years, we have invested more than $57 million in technology to help us better serve our patients. The result is a robust electronic medical record (EMR) system called Epic that is operational across our health system’s four hospitals and 49 outpatient clinics and service sites. Just 5 percent of health care systems and hospitals in the country have implemented an EMR to this same level.

This technology plays a huge role in enabling providers to partner with patients to achieve better quality and convenient and accessible health care.

We are pleased to encourage more and more of our contracts with health care insurers to be based on quality outcomes (value) rather than traditional "fee for service" (volume). EMRs are an important tool to help manage patients’ health conditions, ensuring that patients receive the appropriate care at the right time.

For example, diabetes costs the United States nearly $174 billion per year and these costs are expected to triple by 2035. In Hawaii, caring for people with diabetes now costs $1 billion a year. We are seeing remarkable results with diabetic patients who are a part of HealthAdvantage, our new way of delivering health care that is focused on wellness and preventive care using Internet-based communication in addition to traditional doctor visits.

You may have heard the term "Patient Centered Medical Home" and that’s what this is — patients partnering with their primary care physician and an extended team of nurses and health educators who are all focused on good health.

Much of our success in managing chronic conditions is due to patient involvement. More than 22,000 of our patients can now manage their health any time anywhere through MyHealthAdvantage, an online patient portal that gives patients convenient access to their health care team and personal health information.

Their health information follows them as they move from primary care to specialty care, or from clinic to hospital, so everyone is on the same page.

MyHealthAdvantage also allows caregivers to access the health information of their family members, which is truly a benefit in Hawaii where it is commonplace for a working mom or dad to be caring not only for their children but their aging parents as well.

To many in health care, these are difficult, uncertain times. We are finding that through teamwork, innovative approaches and the use of technology, we are improving health care quality, providing a better patient experience and reducing the rate of increase in total cost of care over time.

We envision how healthy Hawaii can be but we also know that it takes all of us, working together in new ways to fulfill this goal. Let’s create a sustainable health care future for all of Hawaii.