Value Acceleration
Consistent with WCHQ’s mission to support activities that lead to high-quality, affordable health care, the WCHQ Board approved a “value acceleration” initiative that will be facilitated by WCHQ staff and be adaptable to all member organizations. Read the full brief here.
The Affordability of Health Care is a Pressing Issue
The issue among purchasers, payers, employers and consumers is that health care has become unaffordable. The cost of care for the patient is a concern for health care providers, too, who are being asked to help find a solution. Following months of research, planning and multi-disciplinary stakeholder meetings, the Board approved a strategy and asked WCHQ staff to create a framework for evaluating proposals that would improve the affordability of health care.
The WCHQ Value Acceleration Initiative
What Is it?
The Board authorized the selection of one initial priority all WCHQ members and stakeholders will commit to that will drive greater value for patients, employers, insurers and providers. The first priority selected for the Value Acceleration Initiative was Patients with Multiple Morbidities; with a particular focus on diabetes, hypertension and depression.
The first priority was selected based on an analysis of both clinical and claims data, member surveys and available literature. Improving care for patients and the efficiency by which care is delivered to patients with co-morbidities met the criteria that a Board-appointed advisory group established to evaluate priorities. The priority selected had to meet the following criteria:
- Associated with high-cost areas of care and/or procedures;
- There are gaps in performance or low performance compared to available benchmark data;
- Shows significant variation in practice;
- High utilization without demonstrating better patient outcomes;
- Align with WCHQ member and stakeholder priorities;
- Align with national, regional and state pay-for-performance programs; and,
- Represent significant patient safety concerns.
It is anticipated that the focus will expand to more than one priority in subsequent years.
What Will the Value Acceleration Initiative Accomplish?
WCHQ will accelerate members’ success in achieving better results for patients with multiple morbidities by developing a comprehensive set of “best practices” that will encompass ways to improve value through clinical quality improvement, practice redesign, payment strategies, benefit plan design, and patient engagement/ self-management. This new strategic initiative will result in:
- Continued and dramatic improvement in selected quality metrics to maintain Wisconsin’s high national ranking;
- Achieving an improvement in Wisconsin’s ranking on a per capita cost to be among the lowest five states in the country; and,
- An increase in member engagement and satisfaction.
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