Published on May 10, 2010

Methodist Joins New Accountable Care Collaborative

Methodist Medical Center today announced that it will work as part of a new collaborative to launch Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) in 70 markets. These ACOs will implement essential healthcare reforms to deliver high-quality, patient-centered care. In making this move, Methodist expects to be among the first in the nation to create ACOs in the market, accepting accountability for the care delivered to patients by improving care coordination, efficiency, quality and patient satisfaction.

ACOs are defined as a group of providers coming together to accept accountability for a defined patient population's care. ACOs are designed to keep patients healthy and out of intensive care settings, while simultaneously shifting reimbursements to increasingly pay based on the achievement of top performance goals.

Organized by Premier, a healthcare performance improvement alliance, the collaborative includes more than 60 hospitals nationwide that will work together to test, measure and share best practices for creating ACOs and improving overall health and wellness in their communities. Collaborative members also will build the critical components of accountable care, including:

• Patient-centered health homes that deliver primary care and manage health and wellness.
• New approaches to primary, specialty and hospital care to reward care coordination, efficiency and productivity.
• Tightly integrated relationships with specialists, ancillary providers and hospitals so they are similarly focused and aligned to achieve high-value outcomes.
• Provider/payer partnerships and reimbursement models that incent improved outcomes, rewarding value over volume.
• Population health information infrastructure, including health information exchanges, to enable care coordination across provider networks.

"By embarking on this effort to transform the quality, efficiency and satisfaction of patient care, Methodist is putting patients first and creating a successful new model that others will seek to learn from and emulate," said Premier President and CEO Susan DeVore. "The work required to become an ACO will be extremely challenging and Methodist deserves tremendous credit for its commitment to implementing necessary reforms that will help ensure our system is sustainable and highly effective. Methodist is a true marketplace leader, and in taking this step, will have a positive effect on community health."

Methodist President and CEO Michael Bryant said, " Under the health care reform legislation, a pilot accountable care organization will have to be introduced in 2012 and implemented by 2017. We hope to do it in 2012 in some limited form."

The Premier ACO Collaborative is basing the definition of value - and, thus, the accountability for delivering it - on the Triple Aim approach used by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. The Triple Aim requires providers to simultaneously focus on optimizing quality and outcomes of care; patient satisfaction with care, patient engagement in their care and overall patient involvement in working toward optimal health outcomes; and efficiency, typically measured as a per member, per month cost of care.

About the Premier healthcare alliance, 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient
Premier is a performance improvement alliance of more than 2,300 U.S. hospitals and 66,000-plus other healthcare sites working together to achieve high quality, cost-effective care. Owned by not-for-profit hospitals, Premier maintains the nation's most comprehensive repository of clinical, financial and outcomes information and operates a leading healthcare purchasing network. A world leader in helping deliver measurable improvements in care, Premier works with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the United Kingdom's National Health Service North West to improve hospital performance. Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Premier also has offices in San Diego, Philadelphia and Washington. http://www.premierinc.com/