Michael Sroczynski | President, Hospital Association of Rhode Island
1. What do you see as the greatest challenge facing Rhode Island’s health care system? Like states across the nation, our health care system is facing major disruptions because of long-standing systemic pressures and federal policy changes. With already-high emergency department dependence and thousands of Rhode Islanders poised to lose coverage, uncompensated care could escalate to levels hospitals cannot sustain.
2. What work stands out to you as most significant from your first six months as HARI president? What stands out most from my first six months is the progress we’ve made bringing hospitals together around shared priorities at a pivotal time for Rhode Island’s health care system. We’ve strengthened alignment across our members, elevated a unified voice on access, affordability and financial sustainability, and built productive partnerships with state leaders.
3. You have experience leading the adoption of near-universal health coverage as vice president for the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association. What was your key takeaway from this experience? My biggest takeaway is simple: coverage matters – deeply. Those coverage reforms have made health care possible for patients and families who were once left behind, improved basic public health and provide important supports for hospitals and providers.
At the same time, coverage alone is not enough. The system surrounding that coverage must function effectively. My experience in Massachusetts reinforced that expanding access must go hand in hand with how coverage works in practice.
4. Last year, HARI addressed a need to relieve crowded emergency departments by improving access to primary and behavioral care. What policies can the Ocean State pursue to achieve this goal? First, it’s important that we look at improving ways to access care outside of the hospital, including primary and behavioral health care, so patients with less-urgent medical needs can get timely care.
What’s equally important is ensuring patients can be discharged in a timely manner to the next appropriate site of care.
5. With ongoing talks about the state potentially gaining a second medical school at the University of Rhode Island, how would this development impact workforce availability and the broader health care landscape in Rhode Island? As demand for care grows in Rhode Island, ensuring a robust pipeline of health care workers benefits patients from both an access and affordability perspective. More doctors, more nurses, more health technologists and other medical professionals is certainly a meaningful part of strengthening the health care system and helping patients get timely care close to home. Meanwhile, we also understand that training more providers is just one part of the solution. Rhode Island must also look at ensuring that the practice environment for those workers is supportive. We have lower reimbursement rates here than neighboring states and administrative burdens that we need to relieve to make Rhode Island a place where our dedicated healthcare workers want to stay.
(Updated to add context about Rhode Island's health care system to the end of the answer to Question 5.)
