Primary PartnerCare ACO and Healthix Demonstrate Medicare Spending Savings with Clinical Alerts
GREAT NECK, N.Y., March 13, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Primary PartnerCare ACO Independent Practice Association, Inc. ("Primary PartnerCare ACO"), a 100+ primary care physician accountable care organization participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program, and Healthix, the country's largest public Health Information Exchange (HIE), today announced compelling results demonstrating the value of healthcare data sharing in improving the quality of care and outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries.
Primary PartnerCare ACO, the first ACO to join Healthix, has been collaborating with the HIE since early 2016 to deliver clinical alerts for patient care coordination. For these patients, Healthix sends real-time alerts to Primary PartnerCare ACO when patients visit the emergency room, are admitted to or discharged from the hospital or a skilled nursing facility (for rehabilitation). Healthix alerts are displayed on the Primary PartnerCare ACO Physician Portal for the patient's primary care physician, and are used by the Primary PartnerCare ACO care management team of registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and patient advocates, to coordinate care with patients and their primary care physicians.
"These real-time alerts allow the patient's primary care provider, the person most familiar with the patient's medical history, to intervene with a collaborative clinical support team, to ensure that vital patient information is shared with the hospital team, thereby preventing duplication of services, delays in treatment, avoidable admissions or even erroneous treatment --all while improving patient outcomes," states Harry S. Jacob, MD, co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Primary PartnerCare ACO.
In 2018, Primary PartnerCare ACO cared for over 19,000 Medicare Beneficiaries with primary care physicians in Long Island and the Metropolitan New York region. The study measured and compared primary care practices' hospital admissions and readmissions in correlation with the percentage of Medicare patients in each practice that had consented to Primary PartnerCare ACO to receive Healthix Clinical Alerts. Based on a historical data analysis of outcomes, Primary PartnerCare ACO found a direct correlation with the practices' Healthix consent rate and related hospital admissions. Primary care practices with a Healthix consent rate of 15% or higher demonstrated a statistically significantly lower rate of admissions per 1,000 compared to their peers with a Healthix consent rate of lower than 15%.
"The primary care practices with a Healthix consent rate of 15% or higher had a hospital admission rate 26.9% lower than their peers, considering admission case mix and HCC adjusted indicies, respectively," states Dmitriy Aronov, PhD, SVP, Analytics and Strategy, Primary PartnerCare Management Group, the management services organization for Primary PartnerCare ACO. "As a primary care ACO, we are focused on improving the quality of life for our patients, and clearly, avoiding hospital admissions is a central goal in achieving our mission. Not only did the primary care practices with Healthix consent rate of 15% or greater have a lower hospital admission rate, but they also demonstrated a 25% lower 30-day readmission rate compared to their peer practices with lower Healthix consent rates," adds Dr. Aronov.
Readmissions within 30 days of discharge is a standardized quality measure utilized by Medicare and commercial insurance carriers to measure the effectiveness of healthcare systems in adequately and safely discharging patients. This measure has become more important recently, as Medicare instituted financial penalties for hospitals with high 30-day readmission rates, to counter premature discharges under the DRG system of payment, wherein a hospital receives the same payment for grouped diagnoses and procedures irrespective of the number of days the patient is in the hospital.
"In a value-based healthcare environment, this type of analysis supports the power of the data and functionality available through Healthix. Primary PartnerCare ACO has led the way for other ACOs in the state to leverage HIE to deliver efficient and effective care," adds Jason Thaw, Vice President, Member Strategy and Engagement at Healthix. Primary PartnerCare ACO and Healthix are forging a deeper relationship to continue to improve the quality of life for residents in the communities they serve in New York. In December 2018, Primary PartnerCare ACO entered into a relationship with Healthix to pioneer the Healthix patient longitudinal medical record, wherein Primary PartnerCare ACO will receive clinical updates each time a patient seeks care not only from a hospital, but any physician, nursing home, radiology provider or laboratory participating with Healthix.
About Primary PartnerCare®
Primary PartnerCare is a physician-driven organization founded on the belief that private practice primary care physicians in partnership with their patients produce optimal health. Primary PartnerCare ACO has over 100 primary care physicians in Nassau, Suffolk, Queens, and New York Counties, and was selected to participate in the Medicare Shared Savings Program effective January 2014. In addition to its physician companies, Primary PartnerCare includes an affiliated management services organization focused on care coordination, outcomes improvement, and the development of proprietary software products for health risk assessment, chronic care management, population health, and predictive analytics. Primary PartnerCare is headquartered in Great Neck, NY. For more information, please visit www.PrimaryPartnerCare.com.
About Healthix
Healthix is the largest public Health Information Exchange (HIE) in the nation, bringing together over 1,000 healthcare organizations at thousands of locations across New York City and Long Island. Healthix provides secure access to clinical data of more than 17 million patients, for treatment, care coordination and quality improvement. Data available through Healthix includes a broad range of clinical information electronically delivered with each patient encounter from across New York State, 24/7 in real-time. For more information, visit www.healthix.org.
Contact:
Marion Davis
516-233-2485
[email protected]
SOURCE Primary PartnerCare Management Group, Inc.
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