Three Health Care Organizations Honored for Successful
Hospital-Physician Alignment
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Advisory Board
Company's Southwind program announced on Monday that it has
recognized three top-performing health care provider organizations
with national awards for successful physician alignment.
(Logo:
http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110802/PH45999LOGO )
Southwind presented the following awards:
- Physician Alignment Award in Clinical Integration (CI): Dignity
Health, for engaging more than 2,300 physicians to improve
collaboration;
- Physician Alignment Award in Clinical Transformation:
Adirondack Region Medical Home Pilot, for implementing advanced
primary care across all health care providers in a region of
New York; and
- Physician Alignment Award in Physician Practice Management:
Lancaster General Health, for improving quality of care while
saving more than $5.5 million by
improving its medical group's revenue cycle and providing
physicians access to automated performance reports.
"When hospitals, health systems, and other providers begin
making the transformation from volume-based to value-based care, no
factor plays a more critical role in their success than the ability
to align closely with physicians on cost and quality performance,"
said John Deane, CEO, Southwind, The
Advisory Board Company's health care management and consulting
services program. "These three organizations are national
leaders in executing key initiatives for an accountable care
strategy: improving performance, raising quality, and reducing
costs."
Southwind Physician Alignment Award in Clinical
Integration: Dignity Health
In CI programs, a network
of independent physicians collectively commits to collaborate with
a hospital or health system to deliver improvements in quality and
cost of care. Dignity Health, headquartered in San Francisco, is one of the nation's five
largest health care systems in the nation with 11,000 physicians
across Arizona, California, and Nevada. Dignity Health
sought a model of care that would leverage local affiliations and
foster physician leadership in each market, but would also align
physicians with the system's overarching strategy to become
regional, integrated care delivery systems.
Working with Southwind, Dignity Health developed an executive
strategy to foster and support local, physician-led efforts for CI
programs. Today, more than 2,300 physicians across the
Dignity Health system participate in a local CI program.
Dignity Health has CI program development under way in six of
nine service areas, with the other three on pace to have CI within
12 to 18 months. Three of the CI programs have made informal
introductions to the Federal Trade Commission.
"Working with physicians to build clinically integrated networks
is an important part of our commitment to modernizing the U.S.
health care system," said Bruce
Swartz, Senior Vice President of Physician Integration at
Dignity Health. "We are honored by this recognition for our
efforts and we look forward to continuing our progress to make care
more efficient and easier to navigate for both patients and
physicians."
Southwind Physician Alignment Award in Clinical
Transformation: Adirondack Region Medical Home
Pilot
Clinical Transformation refers to a change in
hospital-physician partnerships to support value-based care.
The Adirondack Region Medical Home Pilot is a collaboration between
Community Providers, Inc. – comprised of CVPH (Champlain Valley
Physicians Hospital) Medical Center and Elizabethtown Community
Hospital – and Adirondack Health and Hudson Headwaters Health
Network. Together, these organizations worked with Southwind
to help transform health care delivery across a region twice the
size of Rhode Island by
implementing an advanced primary care model.
In partnership with the State of New
York, the partner organizations formed a commissioned
regional medical home pilot for 49 NCQA Level III-recognized
patient centered medical homes and established the Adirondack
Health Institute (AHI) as the managing entity of the pilot.
The effort has drawn participation from all providers across the
community: five hospital systems, 33 primary care practices, and
225 primary care providers.
All told, seven commercial health plans, Medicaid, and Medicare
are participating in a new accountable payment model through
AHI.
"This new care delivery model has improved our physician
recruitment and retention by ensuring a bright economic and
clinical future for providers in the Adirondack region, and we are excited to have
won this award for the pilot program," said Cathy Homkey, CEO, AHI. "The
patient-centered medical home model has brought great benefits for
the community's patients, providers and payers."
Southwind Physician Alignment Award in Physician Practice
Management: Lancaster General Health
Physician
practice management refers to optimizing the performance of the
health system-sponsored physician-employment enterprise.
Lancaster General Health (LG Health), a regional 631-bed
not-for-profit health care system in Lancaster, Pa., engaged Southwind to help
improve management of more than 170 physicians, including more than
100 employed by the system's multispecialty medical
group.
The initiative created a $5.5
million ongoing annual improvement in LG Health's revenue
cycle. The system instituted a physician compensation model
based primarily on payer reimbursement for their services and that
also included a 10% component for care quality. In addition,
LG Health now provides physicians with access to automated reports
that track performance toward compensation goals and compare
physicians' performance to the practice average.
"The medical group we established back in the 1990s has emerged
from the transformation initiative as a high-performing, aligned
group that has achieved sustainability for our investment," said
T. Raymond Foley M.D., A.G.A.F.,
President, Lancaster General Health Physicians. "We are
honored to receive this recognition for our work. Our
physician productivity is strong, and our professional fee revenue
cycle has vastly improved its performance with increased
automation."
For more information on Southwind, please visit the Southwind
award homepage of the Advisory.com website.
About Dignity Health
Dignity Health, one of the
nation's five largest health care systems, is a 16-state network of
nearly 11,000 physicians, 56,000 employees, and more than 300 care
centers, including hospitals, urgent and occupational care, imaging
centers, home health, and primary care clinics. Headquartered
in San Francisco, Dignity Health
is dedicated to providing compassionate, high-quality and
affordable patient-centered care with special attention to the poor
and underserved. In 2011, Dignity Health provided
$1.4 billion in charitable care and
services. For more information, please visit
http://www.dignityhealth.org.
About Adirondack Health Institute
The Adirondack
Health Institute expands regional collaboration among health care
and social service providers serving the Adirondack Region of
New York state. AHI
addresses rapid changes and challenges to the health care industry
by working with local providers and organizations through the
coordination of planning, recruiting, clinical activities, outreach
and oversight of grant-supported programs. AHI is a joint
venture of Adirondack Health, Community Providers, Inc., and Hudson
Headwaters Health Network. Its service area includes
Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, Saratoga, Warren and Washington counties. For more
information, visit
http://www.adirondackhealthinstitute.org.
About Lancaster General Health
LG Health encompasses
Lancaster General Hospital (LGH) and Women & Babies Hospital,
including a Level III-B Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and a network
of outpatient centers and physician practices. Thrice
designated a Magnet hospital for nursing excellence, LGH has been
recognized regionally and nationally for its cardiovascular,
intensive care and orthopedic services. Other entities
include LG College of Nursing & Health Sciences, Lancaster
Rehabilitation Hospital, VNA Community Care Services, LG Health
Research Institute and Lancaster Cleft Palate Clinic. In the
summer of 2013, the new Ann B. Barshinger Cancer Institute will
provide advanced technology and integration of cancer care under
one roof. As a member of the Penn Cancer Network, LG Health
has access to the vast research and technological resources of one
of the nation's foremost cancer centers. For more information
visit http://www.LancasterGeneral.org.
About The Advisory Board Company
The Advisory Board
Company is a global technology, research, and consulting firm
partnering with 125,000 leaders in 3,700 organizations across
health care and higher education. Through its innovative
membership model, the firm collaborates with executives and their
teams to elevate performance and solve their most pressing
challenges. The company provides strategic guidance,
actionable insights, web-based software solutions, and
comprehensive implementation and management services. For
more information about The Advisory Board Company, visit
http://www.advisory.com.
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