Top experts shared insights related to healthcare and developing innovative approaches to help reduce costs and improve outcomes in healthcare, at the NIHCM Foundation https://www.nihcm.org, event “Reimagining Health Care in America” held on Capitol Hill on May 14, 2018.
Nancy Chockley, President and CEO, NIHCM Foundation, works with health plan CEO’s and policy experts to advance strategic thinking and find practical applications. She also spearheads the Foundation’s work in healthcare reform, children’s health, obesity, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare costs.
She opened the event by saying, “Innovations are taking place in dealing with new payment models, the development of new technologies and medical devices, and finding new ways to use artificial intelligence to provide more informative health and medical information”.
Several leaders in the health insurance space presented their ideas on how their organizations are moving forward. Patrick Conway MD, President and CEO Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina https://www.bluecrossnc.com and Former Deputy Administrator for Innovation and Quality and Former Director for CMMI reports, “BCBS of North Carolina serves 3.9 million members, has 5,000 employees, and produces $9 plus billion in revenues.”
Conway explained, “The concept of developing innovations play an important role in serving members and most importantly moving healthcare forward in the state.
For example, BCBSNC realized the importance of primary care and formed their “Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Incentive program. When using the PCMH model, the primary care practice acts as the hub for the medical home by utilizing a multi-specialty team to coordinate member care.
BCBSNC is using the latest technologies and has invested in analytic services and information management to produce valuable and up-to-date solutions and services. As part of this effort, BCBSNC has developed a state-of-the-art security program and is managing an array of modern security technologies to prevent data loss, advance malware detection, and identity management and web application testing.
Last February, BCBS announced they are financially investing in addressing the opioid epidemic. The organization will donate $1 million to TROSA which is a multi-year residential program www.trosainc.org enabling substance abusers to recover by receiving comprehensive treatments, work-based vocational training, education, and continuing care.
In addition, BCBSNC will invest $390,000 with the University of North Carolina, School of Government, to develop community-based solutions to the opioid epidemic in up to ten North Carolina communities over the next two years.
Panelist, Patrick Geraghty, CEO, GuideWell https://www.guidewell.com and Florida Blue https://www.floridablue.com, reports that GuideWell is Florida’s oldest and largest health insurer serving over five million members, plus serving 16 million in 29 states including D.C, Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.
As Geraghty said, “The goal is to power healthcare business solutions using a team to enable clinical services to be brought into the home. It is necessary to use both high tech and low tech in home settings.”
Also, retail centers play an important role in serving the public. Florida Blue’s retail centers conduct seminars to help people with health and medical issues. They also operate emergency medical facilities that are high touch and competitive in the delivery system, but at the same time, are driving down costs
The GuideWell Innovation Center http://guidewellinnovation.com located in Lake Nona Medical City is home to some of the top hospitals, universities, research institutions, plus health and life science companies in the state. The Center’s purpose is to do educate researchers and work on projects with innovators.
Central to the Innovation Center is the “Collaborative Resources Ecosystem (CoRE) https://www.guidewellcenteratlakenona.com which is accessible to Innovation Center partners. GuideWell shares CoRE with affiliated partners and uses CoRE to advance in several areas.
The studies focus on consumer analytics, advancing predictive health analytics, and also ways to participate in programs related to nutrition, sports, home health, and workplace wellness. Studies also focus on policy issues, managing wearables, producing undetectable devices, sensors, developing intelligent homes, personalized medicine, and evaluating models for risk-based financing and payments
Additional speakers at the NIHCM event included Gail Wilensky, PhD, Senior Fellow Project HOPE www.projecthope.org, Clifton Leaf, Editor in Chief, Fortune http://www.fortune.com, Co-Chair Fortune Brainstorm HEALTH, and Editor of “Brainstorm Health Daily”, and Peter B Bach, MD Director, for the Center, for Health Policy and Outcomes at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center https://www.mskcc.org/research-programs/health-policy-outcomes.
Go to https://www.nihcm.org/events/recent-events/event/reimaging-health-care-in-America to watch the video.