Geisinger Medical Center chosen as hip and knee replacement Center of Excellence

The hospital is the only hospital with the Employers Centers of Excellence Network that has the designation for cardiac, spine, bariatrics and hip and knee replacement surgeries in the country

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Geisinger

Jul 22, 2020, 09:00 ET

DANVILLE, Pa., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Geisinger Medical Center has been designated a Center of Excellence (COE) for hip and knee replacement surgeries in the Employers Centers of Excellence Network (ECEN) by Health Design Plus, a national leader in the creation and management of employer-sponsored health plan offerings and direct to employer bundled contracting and the Pacific Business Group on Health, a nonprofit business coalition focused on health care quality and affordability.

Geisinger, which is viewed as a national model in providing both high-quality and cost-effective medical care, now has the only hospital in the country within the ECEN — Geisinger Medical Center — that is a designated Center of Excellence for cardiac, spine, bariatric and hip and knee replacement surgeries.

Geisinger Medical Center, the organization's flagship campus in Danville, is one of 13 hospitals in the United States to earn the COE designation. Other centers include Johns Hopkins and, Mayo Clinic.

As part of the ECEN joint replacement program, patients visit a team of joint care specialists that includes a surgeon, an internal medicine physician and physical/occupational therapists. Care is coordinated across multiple specialties by a registered nurse coordinator, who is a resource for the patients throughout their stay in Danville. Other specialists are included based on the patient's individual clinical needs.

The ECEN provides employees access to demonstrated high-quality care for elective surgeries at meticulously selected Centers of Excellence across the United States. Through the ECEN, patients receive care at little or no cost, and employers achieve predictable costs and overall savings on employee benefit programs.

The ECEN selection qualifies both the hospital and its surgeons based on quality and outcomes data at the individual surgeon level. The assessment criteria include a review of more than 30 public data metrics, interviews with the clinical team and an on-site visit to observe the patient's complete experience. Upon satisfactory data review, an in-depth site visit is performed by the designating bodies that follows a patient tracer methodology. ECEN centers must demonstrate exceptional clinical outcomes and patient experience, including shared decision-making.

Hospital providers in the network utilize "bundled" rates, meaning that all costs are included as a single lump sum, which offers transparent and predictable costs. Participating employers have agreed to pay for the travel costs for their employees and waive their standard patient contributions, such as deductibles and copays.

"Making better health easier and providing world-class care is central to everything we do at Geisinger," said Dr. Michael Suk, chair of Geisinger's Musculoskeletal Institute. "Our programs are designed to achieve the best possible outcomes in a cost-effective and patient-centered way. We are pleased to provide the same cutting-edge hip and knee replacement surgery and care we have been providing locally for decades to even more people across the United States through the ECEN program."

The initiative was launched on July 1, 2020, and Geisinger physicians have already seen several patients since its launch. For more information, visit www.Geisinger.org/destination-medicine-news

About Geisinger
Geisinger is committed to making better health easier for the more than 1.5 million consumers it serves. Founded more than 100 years ago by Abigail Geisinger, the system now includes 13 hospital campuses, a 540,000-member health plan, two research centers and the Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine. With 32,000 employees and 1,800 employed physicians, Geisinger boosts its hometown economies in Pennsylvania and New Jersey by billions of dollars annually. Learn more at geisinger.org or connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.