Atrius Health Expands Use of ArborMetrix Episode Analytics to a Total of 28 Surgical Specialty Procedures

ANN ARBOR, Mich., June 19, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- ArborMetrix, Inc., a leading provider of real-time healthcare analytics, today announced that Atrius Health, a large multi-specialty physician group practice dedicated to the improvement of care for its patients across eastern and central Massachusetts, has expanded the use of analytics in EpisodeMetrix^TM from six to a total of 28 surgical specialty procedures.

Atrius Health will use the analytics within EpisodeMetrix to more rigorously explore medical care expenses and care variation around this focused set of high-volume acute episodes of specialty care. Atrius Health will leverage its all-payer claims database to examine the variations in episode care across hospitals and specialty providers within its risk-based care contracts.

Atrius Health has 37 internal medicine practices certified as Level 3 (the highest level possible) Patient-Centered Medical Homes by the National Committee for Quality Assurance and has attained HIMSS Level 7 recognition for its health informatics infrastructure. Atrius Health originally piloted ArborMetrix's software in 2013 to test its performance analyzing clinical and cost variations for six orthopedic and cardiology acute episodes of care.

"We are excited to leverage the acute care episode analytics in EpisodeMetrix to more rigorously and fairly explore medical expenses and care variation for these additional procedures," said Joe Kimura, MD, MPH, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer of Atrius Health. "Following our pilot program for cardiology and orthopedic surgical specialties, we recognized the potential for ArborMetrix's episode analytics to be an important complement to the population-based, total medical expense analytics already in use across Atrius Health."

ArborMetrix's software is now used by Atrius Health to analyze cost and variations in practice patterns for more than two dozen acute care surgical specialty episodes. It provides information Atrius Health needs to more fairly study and explore major drivers of clinical and medical expense variation and helps physicians define opportunities for improvement. Information on these drivers is provided based on surgical specialty, both by hospital and by surgeon; and physician and hospital outliers.

Atrius Health is one of 32 Medicare Pioneer ACOs selected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as leaders in coordinating care for patients across care settings. Medicare Pioneer ACOs participate in shared savings and losses with Medicare after meeting quality performance levels. The more that Pioneer ACOs are able to both improve outcomes and minimize and prevent avoidable or unnecessary expenses, the more they are eligible to earn. However, they also incur greater losses if they cannot both improve outcomes and decrease expense trends.

"Atrius Health continues to be a thought leader in accountable care," said Brett Furst, ArborMetrix's CEO. "Our early insight suggests that other ACOs will have the same if not even greater opportunities to reduce clinical variation within their own ecosystems."

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About Atrius Health
Atrius Health is a non-profit alliance of six multi-specialty physician-led medical groups and a home healthcare agency based in Massachusetts. A national leader in the delivery of high quality, patient-centric care, Atrius Health cares for over 1 million patients in central and eastern Massachusetts with 1100 physicians and 2100 health professionals across 35+ medical and surgical specialties. For more information, please visit http://www.atriushealth.org.

About ArborMetrix
ArborMetrix, Inc., located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, provides a unique, cloud-based platform for performance measurement and clinical intelligence in acute and specialty care. Based on its industry-changing econometric research, ArborMetrix solutions deliver rigorous data analysis while incorporating advanced risk and reliability adjustments. With actionable insights grounded in clinical evidence, ArborMetrix clients quickly achieve quality improvements and cost savings. ArborMetrix was recently recognized by Frost and Sullivan with a 2014 Product Innovation Leadership Award for acute and specialty care. For more information, visit www.arbormetrix.com, email [email protected] or call 734-661-7949.

Media Contact:
Amendola Communications for ArborMetrix
Tim Boivin, 224.209.6495
[email protected]

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SOURCE ArborMetrix