Health Systems Representing 70 Million Patients Meet To Develop and Implement Best Medical Practices

Salt Lake City — As the nation rapidly continues along the path of health reform, the High Value Healthcare Collaborative (HVHC) has been working on the front lines to improve healthcare, lower costs, and move best practices out to the nation’s hospitals. Intermountain Healthcare is a founding partner with the HVHC, which is comprised of 19 healthcare delivery systems and The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. On Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, the CEOs and top leaders from the collaborating health systems will discuss results and strategies from specific initiatives, including work focused on shared medical decision-making with patients, which improves care and lowers costs.

 

The participating healthcare systems represent 70 million patients, 200 hospitals, 300,000 staff, and 70,000 physicians nationwide. The HVHC includes founding partners: Mayo Clinic, Intermountain Healthcare, Denver Health, Dartmouth-Hitchcock, and collaborative members: Baylor Health Care System, Beaumont Health System, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Eastern Maine Health Systems, Hawaii Pacific Health, MaineHealth, North Shore-LIJ, NYU Langone Medical Center, Providence Health & Services, Scott & White Healthcare, Sinai Health System, Sutter Health, UCLA Health, University of Iowa Health Care, Virginia Mason Medical Center. Based in Salt Lake City, Intermountain Healthcare is hosting the meetings.

 

A focus of the meetings will be discussion of shared decision-making initiatives that are being developed and used in a clinical setting to help doctors and patients decide together what treatments and care decisions will be most effective. Research has shown that when patients clearly understand their medical options, they tend to choose less-invasive medical care, which usually costs less, too.

 

Now in its third year, the HVHC has designated six increasingly prevalent health conditions and treatments that have wide variation in rates, costs, and outcomes nationally. These are: knee replacement; hip replacement, diabetes; congestive heart failure; spine surgery, and sepsis. Additional high variation, high cost conditions that affect diverse populations will be added over time.

 

HVHC member organizations share care pathways and data on utilization and outcomes with each other and the public as they adopt best practices and new, expanded standards of measurement. Members of the collaborative are added based on a nomination and review process. Criteria included having strong research and quality improvement processes; a robust health information technology infrastructure; a commitment of personnel, operational, and financial resources; and demonstrated experience in collaboration across institutions.

 

The High Value Healthcare Collaborative is a consortium of 19 healthcare delivery systems and The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. Healthcare member organizations collectively serve a market of more than 70 million people across the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. The mission of the HVHC is to improve healthcare value—defined as quality and outcomes over costs, across time—for its service population, in a sustainable manner, while serving as a model for national healthcare reform.