New York Hudson Valley's Medical Leadership Says CMS Primary Care Program Important Catalyst For Healthier Community

THINC's Susan Stuard and IBM's Paul Grundy applaud Comprehensive Primary Care initiative

FISHKILL, N.Y., April 11, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) launched an initiative to advance comprehensive, coordinated, patient-centered care. The Hudson Valley-Capital District of New York is one of the seven markets selected from around the country to participate in the Comprehensive Primary Care (CPC) program. Its selection is another testament to the health care payers and providers in New York's Hudson Valley leading the way, serving as a model of innovation.

Taconic Health Information Network and Community (THINC) has been committed to this effort since the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the opportunity last year, explained Susan Stuard, THINC's executive director. IBM, one of the area's largest employers, has also worked alongside THINC to galvanize support from both health care providers and health insurance plans and helped organize multi-payer/multi-provider discussions to advance the quality of care in the region.

"The Hudson Valley has a strong history of multi-stakeholder collaboration focused on transforming and improving health care at the local level. Area health plans have been participating with THINC since 2008, and they should be commended for their willingness to continue this work through this important initiative," Stuard said.

The CPC initiative is a multi-payer effort fostering collaboration among public and private health plans to strengthen primary care. Building on the patient-centered medical home concept, CPC aligns payment reform with practice transformation; this means payment is tied to the quality of care and for helping keep patients well. Participating payers -- public and private -- will reimburse medical practices for comprehensive primary care. To learn more about the CPC initiative, see the CMMI announcement here.

"We know multi-payer collaboration is key to transforming primary care, particularly in a community such as the Hudson Valley," Stuard said. "We commend CMMI for this innovative approach to aligning payers and providers. We are excited to be one of the participating markets."

Such an approach can work, as the Hudson Valley experience has already demonstrated, she said. "Aligning incentives, identifying mutually agreed upon standards and requirements, and having a forum for stakeholder engagement in the Hudson Valley has been critical to our success thus far. Without multi-stakeholder efforts, our work to improve care coordination and implement the medical home in the Hudson Valley would not be as far along as they are today. The CPC initiative has the potential to amplify those efforts."

Paul Grundy, MD, MPH, president of the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative, IBM's global director of healthcare transformation and THINC board member, also praised the CPC initiative. "This represents an important step away from segmented care and toward realizing truly comprehensive, coordinated whole-person care," he said. "One of the greatest challenges to transforming health care delivery is ensuring reimbursement is tied to quality of care."

If this project succeeds—and he thinks it will—"what we will see in the Hudson Valley will be comprehensive, coordinated, patient-centered care. And that will lead to better health, better care and decreased total health costs."

About THINC

THINC is dedicated to improving the quality, safety and efficiency of health care for the benefit of the people of the Hudson Valley region of New York. The primary purpose of THINC is to advance the use of health IT through the sponsorship of a secure health information exchange network, the adoption and use of interoperable EHRs and the implementation of population health improvement activities. These activities include public health surveillance and reporting, pay for performance, patient-centered medical home practice transformation, care coordination activities, public reporting and other quality improvement initiatives. For more information, go to www.THINC.org. THINC is part of the Hudson Valley Initiative, an effort to revolutionize health care delivery through a shared vision to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of health care in the community.

About the Hudson Valley Initiative

The Hudson Valley Initiative is an effort among three organizations—Taconic IPA, Taconic Health Information Network and Community and MedAllies--to revolutionize health care delivery through a shared vision to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of health care in the community. These three organizations leverage health information technology, physician practice transformation and value-based purchasing in pursuit of care delivery that is patient-centered, coordinated, accessible, high quality and efficiently delivered through sustainable financial models. To learn more, go to http://www.hudsonvalleyinitiative.com.

SOURCE Hudson Valley Initiative