Idaho Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter signed an executive order establishing the Idaho Healthcare Coalition (IHC) to implement the State Healthcare Innovation Plan (SHIP). The state’s goal is to develop a Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) model of care to focus on population health, improved outcomes, and cost efficiencies.
In 2010, the state established the Idaho Medical Home Collaborative to implement a PCMH model of care but since the Collaborative sunsets in 2014, the IHC will continue the work. The IHC is going to work to transform primary care practices to the PCMH model plus develop regional collaboratives to support the integration of PCMHs with medical neighborhoods. The medical neighborhood could include secondary and tertiary care consultants, hospitals, behavioral health services and other community support services.
SHIP identified the need to redesign the state’s healthcare system to integrate and coordinate care across all healthcare services, but the state is also facing severe workforce shortages across healthcare professions. The IHC in recognizing the provider workforce shortage is working closely with the Idaho Health Professions Education Council to improve the situation.
SHIP also found that many primary care practices are without the resources and support needed to implement quality initiatives. To provide support, the IHC will work to establish quality outcome measures and methods to collect and analyze individual patient and population health outcomes. In addition, the IHC will work to expand health IT by enabling PCMHs to use more EHRs and to connect with other healthcare professionals.