The local and national trend of health care systems aligning with physicians groups emerged as the primary topic of discussion Thursday, Nov. 10, at the Business of Health Care Seminar, presented by The Daily News at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, 1934 Poplar Ave.

The seminar was the final one in a series of six hosted by the newspaper this year that have attracted business and nonprofit professionals, government employees, entrepreneurs, academics and students alike.

The keynote address was delivered by George Hernandez, CEO of Campbell Clinic, a household name in orthopedic care for more than 100 years. The clinic, which focuses entirely on orthopedics, is affiliated with the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and maintains one of the largest orthopedic residency training programs in the country. Hernandez previously held positions with UTHSC’s School of Dentistry, Health First Medical Group and Alverno Memphis before taking a position as chief financial officer of Campbell Clinic in 1995.

Hernandez talked about the reasons behind rising health care costs in the U.S. From a global perspective, the nation lags behind other developed countries in life expectancy and infant and adult mortality rates.

The U.S. has a 32 percent obesity rate compared to 16 percent in France and 5 percent in Japan. Hernandez said he recently learned Tennessee is one of six states in what is now referred to as “The Fat Belt.”

In addition, the nation has 47 million uninsured individuals, compared to zero uninsured individuals in Japan and Germany.

“If you look at health care expenditures as a share of GDP (gross domestic product), looking at the U.S. and nine other fairly representative countries, you’ll see that we’re at 16 percent in the U.S. versus 8, 9 and 10 percent in most of the other countries,” Hernandez said.

Rising health care costs are contributing to the structural organizing taking shape with physician-hospital alignments, of which there are many models, including employment, directorships, co-management and joint ventures.

“We’ve got to drive the cost down,” said Bill Griffin, vice president of corporate finance for Baptist Memorial Health Care Corp., who sat on the panel of local experts discussing the health care sector’s current state and future forecast. “The only way we can do it is for both groups to collaborate.”

Memphis-based physician-hospital system alignments are clearly representative of widespread, emerging health care models aimed at lowering costs and improving the quality of care.

Those alignments range from this year’s partnership between Baptist Memorial Medical Group and Stern Cardiovascular Center, one of the region’s largest cardiology group practices, to Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare’s announcement late last month of its partnership with The West Clinic, a local leader in oncology care.

“It’s really driven by the concept, which we’ve talked about, of both of the providers coming together in order to offer a better solution to the continuum of care, and the quality, ultimately, in the end,” said Griffin, who before handling finance for Baptist Memorial Health Care Corp. served as senior manager-audit for KPMG, where he focused on financial institutions and health care clients, including several large, publicly traded clients. “We as a hospital organization obviously have some more resources that probably aren’t available to those groups, so we can help those groups.”

Other topics of discussion included Accountable Care Organizations, an aging physician population, the growth of the nurse practitioner and physicians’ assistant population, and the U.S. health care system’s transition from a productivity-driven model to a value-driven model.

The other panelists for the event were Ken Beasley, CEO of OrthoMemphis, and Angela Youngberg, an attorney with Rainey, Kizer, Reviere and Bell PLC.

Beasley leads OrthoMemphis, a division of the MSK Group, a Bartlett-based integrated orthopedic practice with more than 30 physicians that also includes Tabor Orthopedics and Memphis Orthopedic Group. He previously served as CEO of Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis for about 15 years.

Youngberg leads her firm’s Health Law Practice Group. She advises clients in connection with setting up new medical practices and other health care entities, joint ventures, accountable care organizations and clinical integration. She has handled numerous transactions involving the acquisitions, sales and mergers of physician practices and other providers.

The seminar was sponsored by Lipscomb & Pitts Insurance LLC and Rainey, Kizer, Reviere & Bell PLC.

The Daily News will host a 2012 Seminar Series offering information on economic development, health care reform, the business of health care, money and markets, sustainable energy and commercial real estate.