While we have spent the last two weeks using our GPS to report the 747 hospitals that the Hospital Value Index™ identified as Best in Value, we noticed over the weekend that Mr. Orszag is still lost with his Atlas.

In the September 27 edition of The New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg reports on the White House’s intensive lobbying efforts to find a Republican Senator to support its vision for health reform. One example cited is a dinner of “lamb loin and Scottish salmon” between Mr. Orszag and Senator Susan Collins, during which Mr. Orszag reportedly e-mailed questions to Dr. Dennis Cortese at the Mayo Clinic.

As articulated here before, the Mayo Clinic has much to recommend it, but low cost, high value healthcare is not among them. Having walked the corridors of hospitals in more than 30 states, I am certain that the medical foundation model is not something that can be replicated successfully throughout America. If, however, Mr.Orszag is bound and determined to use the medical foundation model as the blueprint for national reform, we would again suggest using the GPS to find his way. Using the GPS will point him to the Billings Clinic, which the Hospital Value Index™ reveals produces the highest value of any of the medical foundation or clinic model in the U.S.

Better yet, we would suggest that Mr. Orszag join us at the Voices of Value™ Summit to learn what the 747 Best in Value hospitals have in common that allows them to produce high value care in urban and rural America, in teaching and non-teaching settings, whether for-profit or not-for-profit.