This ACO platform is poised for takeoff
Bryan Mingle, Contributing Rise BloggerLAS VEGAS – One look inside the packed ACO Symposium at HIMSS12 last week and the message was clear: The future of health care belongs to those who will embrace the philosophy and technology of accountable care.
Rise Health Chief Information Officer Nicole Bradberry flew from her home office in Jacksonville, Fla., to Vegas to get an up-close impression of the scale of things to come. As a member of a group of health-care professionals who developed the company’s “Patient Relationship Manager ” and who navigated the information systems at United HealthCare and Cigna for 16 years, Bradberry recognized an innovation whose time had come. Rise’s Bradberry and the company's Chief Operating Officer, Gino Tenace, contributed to the enthusiasm inside the Venetian Sands Expo with conversations about the meaningful use of PRM in an ACO-enabled environment.
Listening to the symposium speaker tell the audience that “unlike most things you encounter in Las Vegas, there is a win-win relationship for all those involved with ACOs” assured Bradberry and Tenace that Rise and its mission was in the right place at the right time.
Health-care information technology is the essential backbone for ACOs – that was a recurring theme in the seminars and education presentations at this year’s HIMSS. ACOs, as defined in Section 3022 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, bring together primary care providers, specialists and other providers to manage the full continuum of patient care and assume accountability for the total costs and quality of care for a defined population.
The IT needs of ACOs to come will extend beyond an electronic medical record system, or EMR. Industry experts say the ACOS will need an HIE, a population data management system, a robust business intelligence and predictive analytics platform and, ultimately, a consumer health platform or portal.
Enter the Rise business model and PRM, which aggregates multiple information sources and algorithmically analyzes data to deliver and organize information for action. PRM enables an extended care team to improve care quality by having essential information at their fingertips when patients interact with providers.
The current menu of ACO options for providers include the Medicare Shared Savings Program, the Advance Payment ACO Model, and the HHS Pioneer ACO program.
A redesigned health-care delivery system ideally will lead to improved health of the nation’s population and better cost control and, more significantly, improve the care experience for patients.
Rise’s PRM, Bradberry said, was built exactly on that vision. It is operated by trained support staff who integrate the uniquely human qualities of empathy and compassion with the newly patented technology. And that is an unbeatable combination for the future.
