CoxHealth Deploys Phytel Population Health Management to Transition from Fee-for-Service to Value-Based Care

DALLAS and SPRINGFIELD, Mo., March 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- CoxHealth, one of the nation's Top 100 integrated Health Networks, has deployed a comprehensive, Web-based population health and patient engagement platform from Phytel to improve the health of patients and ease the transition from fee-for-service to outcomes-based payment.

Physician groups across the US have been making the transition to value-based care, which requires them to manage the health of their entire patient population and holds them financially accountable for meeting cost and outcomes goals. CoxHealth recently signed its first outcomes-based contract with an insurance company and hopes to sign more such agreements in the future, said David Taylor, the health system's Vice President of Regional Services.

"As we move forward with more risk-based contracts, Phytel gives us an advantage by enabling our providers to identify and better manage high-risk patients, by actively engaging those patients in managing their own health, and by helping to prevent unnecessary ER visits and hospitalizations," Taylor said. "The ability of Phytel to engage populations in need of care across outcomes-based agreements containing quality criteria and shared savings bonuses will be essential to our success."

Rolled out across CoxHealth's more than 80 clinics, Phytel analyzes data across electronic health records (EHR) and other enterprise systems, then compares records with evidence-based care guidelines to engage patients who have gaps in recommended care and to measure and improve quality performance.

Beyond an analytics engine, Phytel is a scalable population engagement solution that enables timely, appropriate provider-led interventions with automation built right into providers' workflows. Providers can use Phytel to:

• Stratify populations to identify the top health risks for individual patients
• Identify variances in care delivery to ensure standard use of best practices
• Create personalized, automated patient interventions using phone, email and text messaging
• Track provider performance against internal or external quality measures, enabling involvement in shared saving incentives
• Report on quality performance across multiple payers, measures and quality initiatives 

CoxHealth also will use Phytel to help its practices achieve Level 3 NCQA recognition for Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) – a team-based model for delivering comprehensive and continuous medical care and driving better health outcomes. Phytel provides pre-validation by NCQA for PCMH recognition, enabling physician practices to automatically meet certain PCMH requirements.

"We are pleased that CoxHealth has decided to adopt our population health management solution to scale its care management processes and shift from fee-for-service to value-based care," said Steve Schelhammer, CEO of Phytel. "With the assistance of our analytics tools, care coordination platform, expertise in patient engagement, and knowledge of population health management, we're confident that BMG will achieve its goals."

About CoxHealth
CoxHealth is the only locally owned, not-for-profit health system based in Springfield, Mo. It is accredited by The Joint Commission, distinguished as one of the nation's top 100 health systems, recognized as a U.S. News & World Report Best Regional Hospital, and committed to caring for the community.

Established in 1906, the organization serves more than 1 million people in a 27-county service area in southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas, offering a comprehensive array of primary and specialty care including five hospitals and more than 80 clinics in 25 communities. The health system includes Cox Medical Center South, Cox Medical Center Branson, Cox North Hospital, Meyer Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Hospital, Cox Monett Hospital, Oxford HealthCare (the nation's second largest hospital-based home health agency), Home Parenteral Services (home infusion therapy), CoxHealth Foundation, Cox College, Cox HealthPlans and more. For more information, visit www.coxhealth.com.

About Phytel
The premier company empowering physician-led population health improvement, Phytel provides physicians with proven technology to deliver timely, coordinated care to their patients. Phytel's state-of-the-art registry, which now encompasses more than 30 million patients nationwide, uses evidence-based chronic and preventive care protocols to identify and notify patients due for service, while tracking compliance and measuring quality and financial results. Phytel is ISO 9001:2008 certified, confirming adherence to ISO's internationally recognized Total Quality Management (TQM) standards. For more information, please visit www.phytel.com. Follow us on Twitter and find us on Facebook.

Media Contact:
Todd Stein
Amendola Communications for Phytel
916-346-4213
[email protected] 

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SOURCE Phytel