MissionPoint Health Partners ACO, HCA South Atlantic Improve Health Outcomes and Lower Costs of Care

WASHINGTON, May 15, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- MissionPoint Health Partners and Hospital Corporation of America's South Atlantic Division were selected from more than 900 hospitals nationwide to receive the 2014 Crimson® Physician Partnership Award presented today by The Advisory Board Company at its national Crimson summit in Orlando.   

MissionPoint, the Accountable Care Organization for Nashville-based Saint Thomas Health, will explain at the summit how it collaborated with its clinically integrated network of 1,600 physicians to decrease overall costs of care by more than 12% for Saint Thomas Health's employee population from 2012-13.  MissionPoint also reduced its avoidable admissions rate for Saint Thomas Health's employee population from 4.5% to 2.23% and its emergency department (ED) revisits at Saint Thomas Health facilities within three days from 1.85% to 0%.  MissionPoint looks forward to sharing the results for its MSSP population when they are released in the coming weeks.

Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) South Atlantic, a 10-health system network in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, will detail at the summit how it reduced its average length of stay by 7% and prevented 75 sepsis deaths, 13,400 hospitalized days, 350 complications, and numerous unnecessary costs in one year by engaging physicians in care quality initiatives.

In its fifth year, the Crimson Physician Partnership Award is presented to organizations that demonstrate exemplary results in aligning the efforts of physicians and health systems to deliver higher quality, more cost-effective care to the patients and populations they serve.   Winners are selected from the more than 900 organizations that participate in The Advisory Board Company's Crimson Clinical Advantage suite of programs.

Analytics Drive Care Transformation for MissionPoint

Roughly half of MissionPoint's employees either work with population and physician analytics and workflow solutions directly, or complete their work functions based on information the analytics produce.  For example, MissionPoint leverages data and workflow solutions to:

• Use physician quality scores to guide outreach strategy on which physicians to engage on ACO participation;
• Continuously identify and address gaps in care;
• Stratify patient populations on an ongoing basis to identify new patients for proactive outreach based on their prospective risk score, along with other clinical and psychosocial information collected by the care providers, including nurses, health coaches and social workers;
• Complete comprehensive cost and quality assessments for all patient populations;
• Automate workflows and to-do lists to enable efficient health partner interactions; and
• Track and improve health partner productivity. 

"MissionPoint's analytics-driven approach to population health management is surpassing national standards for filling in the gaps of episodic care, aiding patient activation, and identifying patients' psychosocial needs," said Richard Schwartz, President, Performance Technologies and Consulting, The Advisory Board Company.  "As changing health care reimbursement models push hospitals and health systems to grow their population health management programs from small pilot projects to large-scale care transformation, MissionPoint Health Partners has emerged as a national leader in improving patient outcomes while reducing the total cost of care."  

On a monthly basis, MissionPoint uses Crimson to determine which patients were admitted or had an ED visit outside of the provider network so the ACO can manually assign a health partner to initiate an interaction with the patient. 

"Crimson has enabled us to see beyond our own walls and help physicians have the right care team and intervention for patients to prevent unnecessary hospital admissions," said Dr. Jordan Asher, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Integration Officer, MissionPoint Health Partners at Saint Thomas Health.  "MissionPoint had great learnings in year one of the MSSP on improving the health status of our community, enhancing patient satisfaction, lowering costs, and increasing physicians' operational efficiency for their patients' care across the continuum."

HCA South Atlantic Engages Physicians for Meaningful Cost and Quality Gains

When HCA South Atlantic launched its Clinical Excellence (CE) initiative in 2012, it deployed physician analytics for goal-setting, action plan development and physician training to reduce unnecessary clinical variation and enhance physician engagement.  Today, HCA South Atlantic physicians are reviewing their own quality and cost performance data online and leading a number of CE projects that have achieved measurable improvements.

For example, Trident Health, a two-hospital system based in Charleston, South Carolina, reduced its cost per case for elective hip surgery by 12% and length of stay by 24% after physician analytics revealed opportunities such as increasing pre-operative class attendance, improved discharge planning and physical therapy expectation-setting.

"The Clinical Excellence initiative has advanced HCA South Atlantic's goals of providing safe, effective, and transformed care while creating a culture that is physician led, data driven, and patient centered," said HCA South Atlantic Chief Medical Officer Pranav Mehta, MD.

Mr. Schwartz said, "HCA South Atlantic has risen among national leaders in cultivating hospital-physician collaboration that improves care value for patients."

In another CE project, Memorial Hospital Jacksonville, Florida, (MHJ) leveraged physician analytics to make the business case for implementing a surgical home, a model of coordinated care in which an anesthesiologist follows surgical patients from admission to discharge.  Since implementing a surgical home in April 2013, MHJ has had no hospital-acquired conditions, mortalities or deep vein thrombosis. Cost per case has declined by 21% and average length of stay by 52%.

"Our hospitals were the first in the country to achieve certification by the Joint Commission on sepsis and we attribute a good bit of that to having had Crimson available for the process," said Helena Feather, Vice President, Quality, Risk Management and Ethics and Compliance Officer, HCA South Atlantic Division. 

To download infographics or see videos of the 2014 Crimson Physician Partnership Award-winning case studies, visit http://www.advisory.com/award.  Hospital and health system executives may register for two free Webconferences, "From Nashville to Napa: Building a Scalable Set of Population Health Services," with MissionPoint's Dr. Asher and Vice President of Clinical Integration Wendy Wright on Thursday, June 19 at 1:30 pm EDT and "Appealing to Intrinsic Physician Motivations," with HCA South Atlantic's Dr. Mehta and Ms. Feather on Thursday, June 26 at 1 pm EDT.

About MissionPoint Health Partners

MissionPoint Health Partners is part of Saint Thomas Health in Nashville, Tennessee, which is owned and operated by Ascension Health. As a not for profit organization, we are committed to the vision and values of Ascension Health, not only serving the healthcare needs of our community but the poor and vulnerable among us. In its second year of operation, MissionPoint now serves nearly 110,000 members in Middle Tennessee, delivering high-quality healthcare in a patient-focused, smarter way while reducing health care costs to individuals, employers and entire populations of people. The MissionPoint network includes more than 1,600 physicians, representing more than 60 specialties and sub-specialties. Participating facilities include a number of major hospitals and more than 100 outpatient locations providing clinical integrated services such as home health, outpatient surgery, diagnostic imaging, sleep studies, skilled nursing and hospice services. For more information, visit http://www.missionpointhealth.org.

About HCA South Atlantic

The South Atlantic Division of HCA is headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina. The 10-health system network features over 1,500 beds in facilities in South Carolina Georgia, and Florida. The facilities in the health system offer premier health care with a variety of services and specialty practices.  Coliseum Health System, Colleton Medical Center, Doctors Hospital of Augusta, Fairview Park Hospital, Grand Strand Regional Medical Center, Trident Health System, Summerville Medical Center, Memorial Hospital of Jacksonville, Orange Park Medical Center, and Specialty Hospital of Jacksonville offer a full-range of diagnostic, therapeutic, emergency and surgical services. The South Atlantic Division integrates innovative, state-of-the-art technologies, such as CyberKnife, with fully developed departments specializing in oncology, orthopedics, cardiology, neuroscience, women's health, gerontology, Bariatric surgery and emergency room services.  For more information, visit http://hcasouthatlantic.com.

About The Advisory Board Company

The Advisory Board Company is a global technology, research, and consulting firm partnering with 4,500 organizations and more than 200,000 leaders across health care and higher education.  Through its innovative membership model, The Advisory Board Company 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.  In 2014, The Advisory Board Company noted that more than 60% of the nation's inpatient admissions now flow through the firm's software technology platforms.  For more information, visit http://www.advisory.com.

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SOURCE The Advisory Board Company