Hospital names physicians' chief

Tufts-New England Medical Center has grabbed more executive talent from its biggest competitor in Boston, Partners HealthCare , to help it court physicians.

In 2003, the hospital recruited chief executive Ellen Zane from her post as chief executive of the huge Partners physician network, and Zane brought in another Partners executive, Eric Beyer , to lead the hospital's physicians.

Now Zane has hired the chairman of the Partners physician network, Dr. Jeffrey Lasker , as chief executive of a new, larger Tufts-New England Medical Center organization of community and hospital doctors that Zane created nine months ago.

Lasker's challenge: enlist enough new doctors to make the group, called the New England Quality Care Alliance , a major player in the Boston healthcare market. Lasker said he wants to grow the Tufts-New England Medical Center group to nearly 1,000 doctors by 2010, from about 620 now.

If he is successful, the group will send large numbers of patients to Tufts-New England Medical Center. That, in turn, will improve the hospital's long-term survival prospects.

Creating large physician groups is a trend in Massachusetts, partly a competitive response to the sheer size of the Partners group, called Partners Community Healthcare Inc. , which has 4,500 doctors feeding referrals to hospitals in its network, including Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Lasker said a key selling point for Tufts will be that New England Medical Center is physician-friendly and small enough to provide excellent service.

``A lot of practices feel it's better to affiliate with a small institution that seems less domineering than the Partners institutions," he said. ``I think we'll do well in the market."

Thomas H. Lee, president of Partners Community Healthcare Inc., said doctors are ``voting with their feet" and filling his company's hospitals with patients.

``The competition today isn't about who's the friendliest. The competition is can you deliver the highest-quality care, and can you deliver it as efficiently as possible," Lee said. ``The real foe is each organization's own problems, and trying to fix them."

Larger physician groups can use their size to leverage more lucrative contracts with insurance companies and can get better services from hospitals. They also are better equipped to deal with administrative complications, and are rapidly introducing electronic medical records -- a difficult task for small doctors' offices.

Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates has formed a broader alliance called HealthOne Care System with about 700 doctors. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is also forming alliances at a faster pace among suburban doctors and has built its group to 1,300 to 1,400 doctors, about 500 to 600 of them outside the hospital. Lahey Clinic, another large physician group , has 450 doctors who run their own advanced-care hospital in Burlington.

``All of this points to a shift in the market to reintroduce some vigorous competition," said Ellen Lutch Bender, president of Bender Strategies , a Boston healthcare consulting company that has worked under contract with the new Tufts-New England Medical Center group.

``It also expresses the healthcare industry's realization that a hospital without happy physicians is merely bricks and mortar, and not there for the long term," Bender said.

Tufts-New England Medical Center was a troubled institution when Zane took over in 2003. It had been damaged in a failed merger and was hemorrhaging money. She has stabilized its finances but is still working on ways to reposition it in the market.

Lasker, who received his medical degree from New Jersey Medical School, not only gave up a prestigious Partners post, but he also is leaving the Partners-affiliated pediatrics practice in Hyde Park he ran for 27 years, as well as his job as president of a broader pediatrics contracting entity he founded in the mid-1990s.

He said he will entice small practices with an array of programs to improve their performance and quality.

``There are still a lot of unaffiliated practices out there," Lasker said.

Christopher Rowland can be reached at crowland@globe.com.