Monthly Archives: February 2019

Reference Pricing in Germany: Implications for U.S. Pharmaceutical Purchasing

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https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2019/jan/reference-pricing-germany-implications?omnicid=EALERT1557060&mid=henrykotula@yahoo.com

Reference pricing for pharmaceuticals

ABSTRACT

  • Issue: The German health care system resembles that of the United States in important ways — it is financed by multiple private payers and relies principally on negotiation rather than regulation to establish prices. New drugs that offer minimal benefits compared with existing alternatives within a therapeutic class are subject to reference pricing; those with incremental benefits are subject to price negotiations. Together, the reference and negotiated pricing systems have held German prices substantially below U.S. equivalents.
  • Goal: To describe the German reference-pricing system and compare it to tiered formularies and consumer cost-sharing in the United States.
  • Methods: Document review and interviews with leaders in payer, policy, and pharmaceutical industry organizations in Germany.
  • Key Findings and Conclusions: The German pharmaceutical pricing system uses modest levels of consumer cost-sharing to influence consumers’ choices for drugs with therapeutically equivalent alternatives. Manufacturers are free to set the prices of their products, but insurers will not pay more for a new drug than for its comparators unless it offers an additional clinical benefit. For drugs covered by reference pricing, the insurers’ payment maximum is set at a level that ensures sufficient choices of low-priced options. These models offer an alternative to the U.S. system of tiered formularies.

Introduction

In reference pricing — a component of health insurance design — a health care purchaser establishes a maximum payment it will contribute toward covering the price of a drug. It is used when there is a wide variation in the prices for therapeutically similar products. The payment limit is set at the minimum, median, or other point along the range of drug prices within a therapeutic class. If a patient’s physician prescribes a drug with a price at or below the reference limit, the patient pays only a modest copayment. If a more expensive option is selected, he or she pays the copayment plus the full difference between the reference limit and the price of the chosen product.

Reference pricing offers several advantages over the most commonly used insurance designs in the United States, such as annual deductibles and coinsurance, which expose consumers to financial obligations without providing an affordable option or guidance on how to select products offering the best value. To date, however, reference pricing has been applied only by a limited number of purchasers and only to drug classes that feature multiple generic or therapeutically equivalent alternatives. For these therapeutic classes, it can reasonably be assumed that all products work similarly. Purchasers can limit their payments to the level charged for the cheaper products in each class and patients desiring a higher-priced option reasonably can be required to pay the difference themselves. Patients with physician-identified clinical needs for higher-priced options can be granted an exception.

In its efforts to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of pharmaceutical purchasing, the U.S. can learn from Germany, which manages traditional drugs using reference pricing and novel drugs using comparative-effectiveness pricing. Germany has developed evidence-based methods to assess the clinical benefit of new products, establish reference-based payments for drugs that do not offer incremental benefits over existing products, and negotiate new prices for drugs that do offer incremental benefits.1 This approach enjoys considerable social legitimacy as a mechanism for ensuring patient access while moderating payer expenditures.

The health care system in Germany resembles that of the U.S. in several important respects yet differs in others. (See box.) Both feature multiple nongovernmental insurers rather than a single governmental payer, favor negotiation over regulation for determining prices, enjoy declining expenditures for many traditional, nonspecialty drugs but face rising expenditures for novel specialty products, and are embedded in a culture that values patient access to even the most expensive treatments. However, in Germany, the clinical assessment of each new drug is centralized and the negotiation of drug prices is done collectively by the umbrella organization of health insurers, rather than by each insurer individually. This issue brief describes the structure of drug assessment and pricing in Germany and its potential applicability to the U.S. market.2

 

THE INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK OF PHARMACEUTICAL PRICING IN GERMANY

In Germany, reference pricing falls within an institutional system that features publicly regulated and accountable associations of insurers, physicians, and other stakeholders. Statutory and case law establish the rules governing interactions among these entities, and the Ministry of Health continuously monitors and supports their processes. But the government does not directly assess the comparative clinical benefit of new drugs or negotiate their prices. In this regard, it resembles the U.S. framework more than other European systems where the heavy lifting in pharmaceutical cost control is done directly by governmental payers.

The German institutional framework does differ from its U.S. counterpart in important respects. The organization that assesses the comparative clinical performance of new drugs, the Federal Joint Committee (GBA), consists of representatives of the national insurance, physician, and hospital organizations. Patient advocacy organizations have nonvoting seats on the board. The GBA, in turn, delegates the clinical evaluation of new drugs to a privately governed but publically accountable entity, the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG). IQWiG bases its evaluations on: dossiers submitted by manufacturers, which include a systematic review of the incremental benefit of the drug; the clinical trials for initial market authorization by the European Medicines Agency, as well as other clinical trials; reports by technology assessment agencies in other nations; and other available evidence. GBA then makes its official assessment of each drug’s contribution based on the IQWiG study, further input from the manufacturers, and follow-on testimony at public meetings.

The GBA assessments are used by the umbrella organization of Sickness Funds, the GKV-SV. The GKV-SV works within a statutory and regulatory framework that assigns it special rights and responsibilities, and interprets its role as negotiating the best prices from the point of view of the health system, and not merely that of its constituent insurers.

 

Assessment of Comparative Effectiveness

In the German pharmaceutical system, new drugs are assessed and priced relative to existing treatments for the same conditions. Drugs that offer additional clinical benefits are paid higher prices; reference pricing is applied to new drugs with clinical performance similar to products already on the market. Comparative-effectiveness pricing applies to new products that perform better than their comparators.

All drugs authorized for market access by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) are immediately available after launch for physicians to prescribe and patients to use. The manufacturer unilaterally sets the new drug’s price at time of launch and is reimbursed in full at that price for the drug’s first year. During this first year, an assessment is conducted of the drug’s comparative clinical safety and efficacy by the Federal Joint Committee (GBA), a self-governing but publicly accountable entity representing associations of nongovernmental insurers (also known as “Sickness Funds”), physicians, and hospitals.

The GBA makes several important decisions regarding the assessment of each drug’s incremental benefit, with input from the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Healthcare (IQWiG), the pharmaceutical manufacturer, relevant medical associations, patient advocacy organizations, and other interested entities. First and often most importantly, GBA decides which drug will be used as the comparator against which the new product is to be assessed; a drug treating multiple indications may have multiple comparators. If the new drug is found to offer incremental benefits, its price will be negotiated upwards from the comparator’s price, and so the manufacturer has an interest in having the GBA select a high-priced comparator. However, if GBA picks as the comparator a drug with high price but also high efficacy, the new drug faces a more difficult challenge in demonstrating incremental benefit. A finding of no incremental benefit leads to the drug being assigned to a therapeutic class subject to reference pricing. All products are reimbursed at a level based on the lowest prices charged within the class, if it falls within a therapeutic class for which reference prices have been established. If the new drug is found not to offer an incremental benefit but also does not fall into a reference-priced therapeutic class, its price is subject to negotiation with the proviso that the negotiated price not exceed that of its comparator drug.

Second, the GBA chooses the metrics that will assess the new drug’s benefit. These metrics may differ from those used by the EMA, the European equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in its review of the drug for initial market authorization and for which the manufacturer has conducted clinical trials. In some cases, GBA has rejected metrics acceptable to EMA, such as “progression free survival” for cancer drugs, as it deems them not relevant to the patient’s quality of life. Progression free survival indicates how many months the patient survives posttreatment without an increase in the size of his or her tumors. This metric is correlated with the more important overall survival metric, which indicates the number of months the patient remains alive posttreatment, but is often not correlated with patient quality of life. In other cases, GBA has required that pharmaceutical firms provide metrics that EMA does not require, principally quality-of-life indicators such as change in pain and nausea.

The GBA delegates the clinical evaluation of the new drug to IQWiG,3 which considers the portfolio of evidence used for market authorization by EMA plus other studies conducted by the manufacturer. The final assessment of the drug’s benefit then is decided by the GBA. Drugs can be judged by the GBA to offer a major, substantial, minor, positive but nonquantifiable, or no incremental benefit, relative to the comparator treatment. The nonquantifiable benefit is used when the drug is considered likely to offer incremental benefit but lacks sufficient evidence for a confident judgment of the scale. Orphan drugs, which often have no direct comparator and for which the clinical evidence may be based on very small patient samples, usually are awarded a nonquantifiable benefit. The GBA also evaluates the strength of the available evidence (weak, moderate, or strong). The clinical benefit of a drug can be reassessed by GBA in response to changes in the available evidence, sometimes triggering a renegotiation of the price.

REFERENCE PRICING FOR PRODUCTS THAT DO NOT OFFER INCREMENTAL BENEFITS

If the GBA considers a drug not to offer an incremental benefit over existing treatments, it usually assigns it to one of the therapeutic classes covered by reference pricing. Manufacturers are permitted to set whichever price they feel is appropriate for drugs falling into these classes, but the umbrella organization of health insurers (GKV–SV) establishes a limit to what individual insurers will contribute toward payment. The GKV–SV sets its payment limit near the 30th percentile in the distribution of prices within each therapeutic class, high enough to ensure that patients have more than one choice but low enough to ensure that the payer is not responsible for paying the highest prices within the class. Most generic drugs fall into the reference pricing system. Approximately 34 percent of drugs, 80 percent of prescriptions, and 33 percent of drug spending in Germany is for drugs subject to reference pricing.4

Patients must pay out of pocket the difference between the price set by the manufacturer and the reference-based reimbursement limit set by the purchaser organization. Many patients are unwilling to contribute out of pocket and prefer drugs priced below the reference limit and their physicians will prescribe drugs at or below the limit. Of products subject to reference pricing, approximately 84 percent are priced by their manufacturers at or below the reference price limit and therefore not subject to additional cost-sharing.5 These products make up 92 percent of all prescriptions made for reference-priced drugs. Manufacturers can submit new prices up to twice a month for drugs in the reference pricing system. The umbrella organization of insurance firms is required to update the therapeutic classes every quarter and the payment limits at least annually. Manufacturers are permitted to lower their prices to the reference limit to avoid the otherwise inevitable reduction in sales volume; many do.

For drugs included in the reference pricing system, patients may be required to pay additional copayments, depending on which drug they select in consultation with their physicians. Patients selecting a drug priced above the reference maximum for their class contribute a copayment plus the difference between their drug’s price and the reference maximum. These extra copayments do not count toward the patients’ annual out-of-pocket cost-sharing maximum. However, the extra copayments are modest, since most of the drugs included in the reference pricing system are older, generic medications with typically low prices. For drugs not included in the reference pricing system, German health insurers require patients to pay the cost-sharing amount only.

Aside from the requirement that patients pay the difference between the reference limit and the full price of a product, which applies only in contexts where the patient can choose a low-priced option, Germany places tight limits on patients’ out-of-pocket financial responsibilities. The statutory copayment ranges from a minimum of EUR 5 to a maximum of EUR 10 per prescription, up to an annual out-of-pocket maximum (for all health care services) of 1 percent of gross income for people with chronic diseases and 2 percent for others. Approximately one-quarter of enrollees also have complementary private insurance, which covers these cost-sharing requirements.6

NEGOTIATED PRICING FOR PRODUCTS THAT OFFER INCREMENTAL BENEFITS

If a new drug is judged by the GBA to offer an incremental benefit over existing treatments, it is referred to the GKV–SV for price negotiations with the manufacturer. The insurer umbrella association uses the GBA’s assessment of clinical benefit, as well as the prices of the comparator drug, therapeutically similar medications, and prices charged in other European nations to negotiate a discount off the new drug’s launch price.

Some drugs are judged by the GBA not to offer an incremental benefit yet do not fall into an existing reference-priced therapeutic class, as there must be at least three therapeutically equivalent drugs to constitute a class for reference pricing. These drugs also have their prices negotiated between the manufacturer and the insurer association, but with the proviso that the price of the new drug cannot exceed that of the comparator product chosen by the GBA.

If negotiations between the insurer umbrella association and the drug manufacturer do not conclude with a price agreeable to both sides, the drug is referred to arbitration. In this process, a three-person panel selected by the manufacturer, the insurance organization, and the GBA assesses the evidence and renders a decision. Through the end of 2017 one of five (35 of 186) new drugs assessed by the GBA received a final price through arbitration rather than negotiation; for another 24, the negotiating parties reached an agreement after an arbitration process had been initiated.7

If a manufacturer cannot obtain an acceptable price either through negotiation or arbitration, it can withdraw its product from the market. Between 2011 and 2017, 148 drugs were subjected to comparative-effectiveness assessment and had their prices negotiated by the insurers and manufacturers. Of these, 29 were removed by the manufacturer from the German market by 2018.8 For 12 of these, the manufacturer chose to withdraw the product immediately following the results of the GBA evaluation — this is known as “opting out” of the pricing process. In 16 cases, drugs were withdrawn in reaction to the determined price, mainly through arbitration, and one was withdrawn because its manufacturer went bankrupt.9

Lessons for the United States

The German system uses modest levels of cost-sharing as an instrument to influence consumer choices for drugs with therapeutically equivalent alternatives. However, it does not apply cost-sharing to new drugs that lack alternatives. Comparative-effectiveness pricing is used for new specialty medications that offer clinical benefits over existing treatments. Manufacturers are free to set the prices of their products, but insurers will not pay more for a new drug than for its comparators unless it offers an additional clinical benefit. For drugs covered by reference pricing, the insurers’ payment maximum is set at a level that ensures sufficient choices of low-priced options. These models offer an alternative to the U.S. system of tiered formularies.

In the United States, the level of cost-sharing and the resulting financial burden on patients is high, especially for patients with complex medical conditions. U.S. payers often impose modest copayments on low-cost drugs with many direct substitutes but onerous coinsurance on high-cost drugs with few substitutes. Coinsurance does not point the patient toward the most cost-effective drug choices. In contrast, insurance designs built on reference pricing identify drugs that are priced below the insurer’s payment maximum and require only minimal cost-sharing.

 

 

 

Why Process Is U.S. Health Care’s Biggest Problem

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https://hbr.org/2018/03/why-process-is-u-s-health-cares-biggest-problem?autocomplete=true

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A lot of money has been spent on information technology in health care with little to show for it. To understand why we must pay a visit to the hospital.

It only takes 10 minutes of direct observation of a nurse in a hospital to understand care-delivery processes are not standardized and are dependent on individuals, not systems. This lack of reproducibility leads to errors. Since every caregiver does it his or her own way, it’s difficult to improve anything. Stable systems that are reproducible are required to deliver consistently high quality. Industrial companies figured this out 50 years ago. The writings of manufacturing gurus Imai and Shingo provide insight into how quality is built into processes. A process must first be stabilized then standardized before being improved. Because few standardized processes exist in care delivery there are many possibilities for error. That’s why simply making a poor process electronic by implementing an electronic health record (EHR) doesn’t lead to better quality or cost.

When it comes to change, the technology is the easiest part. Most health systems in America have or are implementing the EHR. And the vendor processes for implementation have become very good. The hard part is to get the doctors, nurses, and administrators to agree on what is the best way to deliver the care. Since the doctors control most care decisions, the rest of the provider team follows the doctors’ lead. If the doctor wants to do things a certain way, that’s what is done. The problem is the next doctor wants it his way and so on. Eventually, we end up with a hopeless mess in which no one knows how anything should be done on any given day. And good luck to a new nurse or technician coming into the system who must learn a multitude of work processes and remember the doctor-dependent differences.

Health care technology is very effective when it is used to support a well-designed care process. The design of new standard care processes need to be owned and driven by the people doing the work, not by some outside consulting firm that brings a 100-page playbook as the answer. As the frontline workers create new designs, they need certain systems that can help them deliver the improved care. Examples of these systems include electronic alerts for medication interactions and reminders to ensure all steps in the care process for the pneumonia patient are followed.

There are two types of improvement systems needed to create a well-designed care process. One is an improvement approach that brings members of an existing clinical team members together to improve an existing care process. They use proven improvement methods such as the principles, systems, and tools of the Toyota Production System (TPS). The second is an innovation process aimed at radically redesigning care. It’s associated with TPS and employs design thinking.

In both cases, the initial effort where rapid experimentation occurs might be an ambulatory clinic or an ER. It becomes a place for others in the organization to learn. It is an inch-wide, mile-deep change in practice that incorporates new processes not only for care delivery but also management. It should result in the systems necessary for sustaining improvement over time. As the model line achieves 50% to 80% improvement over baseline performance, the learning should be spread to other parts of the organization. This new way becomes the new best-known way to deliver care.

One example of a radical innovation is the attempt of HealthEast (now part of Fairview Health Services), which serves the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area, to create the clinic of the future. The leaders brought the vendors in their extended supply chain to the table to help in the design process. This included Epic, an EHR company; Herman Miller, an office furniture company; Boldt, a construction company; and HGA, an architectural firm. Together, the team began redesigning the care-delivery model. Each vendor had the opportunity to deeply understand the needs of the HealthEast providers. By the end of the design phase a new process supported by electronic records, architecture, furniture, and building was integrated to create a unique patient experience.

Before HealthEast formed the model clinic, a group of 11 clinicians had over 11 preferred ways for “their” clinic assistant to do just about everything. One key process, screening the patient for health risks such as cancer and hypertension, resulted in over seven places in the EMR for the provider to look for relevant information. Not only is that time-consuming (contributing to physician burnout), but it also greatly increases the chances of missing important information.

The multi-disciplinary team created a single screening process. Now, clinicians have just two places to look in the EMR for information on whether patients have had screens like mammograms and colonoscopies for cancer, staff can remind patients about what screening tests they need, and leaders are able to support the development of standardized clinical processes. The leader’s standard work is to audit the process and monitor the data. If the process stops being followed or the data shows deteriorating results, leaders will know that immediately.

In the first three months after its introduction, the redesigned process reduced provider search time per patient by 23 minutes. The overall screening rate went from 60% compliance to 72% compliance, meaning over 500 more individuals were appropriately screened over baseline. Perhaps more telling are the changes in patient comments. They went from comments such as “I do not feel my medication list was reviewed,” to “My doctor and medical assistant are always timely, thorough, and reassuring.” These results would not have happened unless all parties were working to build a better process.

Technology now exists to support disruptive innovation in health care. It is an important enabler, but the process must precede the technology. For example, Hospital at Home is an innovation that may well cut the cost of care significantly by reducing the need for inpatient beds. It couldn’t happen without the technology, which allows 24-hour monitoring of patients, real-time electronic communication between providers, and complex equipment to be rapidly set up in the patient home. But it still requires a nurse and a doctor.

What that nurse and doctor do and how they do it are still what will determine successful outcomes of care. Building the care process through careful understanding of what each process step delivers is critical. The medical team can then leverage the technology for data and communication and other needs that support the steps in the process.

Again, this requires standardized work. Every nurse and doctor does not get to do it his or her own way. Standards are established about how the work is performed, and those standards are followed by all until a better way is determined collectively by the team. New innovative care models such as Hospital at Home are based on clear and reproducible standards and will obsolete the old ways of the non-standardized care delivered in most hospitals.

***

It takes more design time to create a care model that builds in quality and efficiency, but without that work upfront, the technology doesn’t matter and, in fact, only increases costs. This thinking is not new. Many industries from aviation to automotive to nuclear power have been applying this concept of “process before technology” for a long time. The safety and quality results in those industries is second to none. It’s about time health care catches up. Our lives may depend on it.

 

 

 

Aetna, Anthem, Health Care Service Corporation, PNC Bank and IBM announce blockchain network

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https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/aetna-anthem-health-care-service-corporation-pnc-bank-and-ibm-announce-blockchain-network?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT0RJNU16UTNOakl4WlRFNCIsInQiOiJ1WHRTRHREbE5rM1hkZmc1QnRcL3JCSjdxMWdtXC9weGE1OE4yT0tMZ2d0eGVCYnlXbkVDSmVtU09UTzZDaUVSTmE2aVRpT1YzSklCVmVsZ3VaMWVyMDlNa1Z2b25DbXZ2QnpxSUpySWluXC8zSDRoTmkya2JCMU53b1h5YkRQUDlNcyJ9

Network will eventually be open to new members for secure digital sharing of healthcare information.

Aetna, Anthem, IBM, Health Care Service Corporation and PNC Bank have partnered to create a blockchain technology network aimed at improving transparency and interoperability in the healthcare industry. 

The groups intend to use blockchain for more efficient claims and payment processing. Blockchain enables the secure exchange of information. It will also benefit more accurate provider directories.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Collaboration is key in the industry as a more cost-effective alternative to merging to create more competitive and efficient systems.

The current network is expected to add additional health organizations in the coming months, including providers, startups, and technology companies.

Initial members include three of the nation’s largest insurers, Anthem; HCSC,a customer-owned health insurer that includes Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans; Aetna, which is now part of the CVS Health business; IBM, which is a leading blockchain provider; and PNC Bank, which is a member of The PNC Financial Services Group.

Blockchain technology gives health systems an edge because it ideally creates faster, more efficient and secure claims and payment processing.

Insurers are mandated to maintain accurate provider directories, a time consuming and often manual practice involving numerous emails, phone calls and even fax exchanges.

For providers, a new technology that can actually reduce time spent in administrative clicks on a computer is a boon.

THE TREND

Despite major initiatives to digitize healthcare information, improvements in transparency and interoperability are still needed for that data to be shared.

Blockchain is designed to fill that role, reducing administrative errors and costs and ultimately enhancing patient care. The network also enables the companies to build and deploy new solutions.

Walmart last year filed a patent to use blockchain for medical records. A pharmaceutical industry consortium called the MediLedger Project, launched in 2017, is using blockchain to track pills across the supply chain, according to Fortune.

ON THE RECORD

“Through the application of blockchain technology, we’ll work to improve data accuracy for providers, regulators, and other stakeholders, and give our members more control over their own data,” said Claus Jensen, chief technology officer at Aetna

Rajeev Ronanki, Anthem chief digital officer Rajeev Ronanki: “Timely access to medical information has been a stumbling block for creating a seamless consumer experience. With a trusted foundation based on transparency and cryptography, we will provide a faster, safer and more secure way to exchange medical information to transform the  consumer healthcare experience.”

What’s more, blockchain will enable large networks to exchange health data in a transparent and controlled way, according to Lori Steele, general manager for Healthcare and Life Sciences for IBM.

“Using this technology, we can remove friction, duplication, and administrative costs that continue to plague the industry,” added Chris Ward, head of product, PNC Treasury Management.

 

Are healthcare jobs safe from AI? More so than many might think

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https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/are-healthcare-jobs-safe-ai-more-so-many-might-think?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT0RJNU16UTNOakl4WlRFNCIsInQiOiJ1WHRTRHREbE5rM1hkZmc1QnRcL3JCSjdxMWdtXC9weGE1OE4yT0tMZ2d0eGVCYnlXbkVDSmVtU09UTzZDaUVSTmE2aVRpT1YzSklCVmVsZ3VaMWVyMDlNa1Z2b25DbXZ2QnpxSUpySWluXC8zSDRoTmkya2JCMU53b1h5YkRQUDlNcyJ9

No occupation will be unaffected by the technology, but healthcare will be affected less than other industries, owing much to its inherent complexity

Across the country and across industries, workers are nervous that automation and artificial intelligence will eventually take over their jobs. For some, those fears may be grounded in reality.

Healthcare, however, looks like it will be largely safe from that trend, a new report from the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program finds.

Examining a chunk of time from the 1980s to 2016, the piece tracks the historical evolution of the technology and uses those findings to project forward to 2030.

The verdict? AI will replace jobs in various industries, but not so much in healthcare.

IMPACT

AI is projected to be an increasingly common form of automation, and the report claims the effects should be manageable in the aggregate labor market. Uncertainty remains, of course, and the effects will vary greatly — across geography, demographics and occupations.

Overall, though, only about 25 percent of U.S. jobs are at a high risk of replacement by automation. That translates to about 36 million jobs, based on 2016 data.

A higher percentage, 36 percent, are at medium risk (52 million jobs) while the largest group is the low-risk group, at 39 percent (57 million jobs).

Most of healthcare belongs in the medium-to-low categories, largely driven by the complexity of healthcare jobs. Still, the risk varies wildly. Medical assistants have what the report calls “automation potential” of 54 percent, but home health aids have just an 8 percent automation potential. Registered nurses sit somewhere in between, at 54 percent.

For healthcare support occupations, the number is closer to 49 percent; healthcare practitioners and technical jobs have 33 percent automation potential.

TREND

The report emphasizes that while some occupations will be safer from automation than others, no industry will be unaffected totally. Mundane tasks will be the most vulnerable.

Fortunately for those in the industry, there’s little in healthcare that’s mundane. AI and machine learning algorithms tend to rely on large quantities of data to be effective, and that data needs human hands to collect it and human eyes to analyze it.

And since AI in healthcare is currently utilized mainly to aggregate and organize data — looking for trends and patterns and making recommendations — a human component is very much needed, an opinion shared by several experts, who point out that empathy are reasoning skills are required in the field.

 

 

DIGNITY HEALTH, CHI FINALIZE $29B COMMONSPIRIT HEALTH MEGAMERGER

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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/strategy/dignity-health-chi-finalize-29b-commonspirit-health-megamerger

Image result for common spirit health
CommonSpirit

The newly merged, $29 billion system will have a footprint in 21 states, with more than 700 care sites and 142 hospitals, and an extensive social services and population health network.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

CHI CEO Kevin E. Lofton and Dignity Health President and CEO Lloyd H. Dean ‘are each a CEO in the Office of the CEO’ for the new health system, which will be based in Chicago.

CommonSpirit Health pledges to focus on underserved communities, population health, and social determinants of health.

Dignity Health and Catholic Health Initiatives on Friday finalized the megamerger of the two Catholic health systems that will now be known as CommonSpirit Health.

The newly merged, $29 billion system will have a footprint in 21 states, with more than 700 care sites and 142 hospitals, along with research programs, virtual care services, home health programs, and population health initiatives to tackle the root causes of poor health.

CHI CEO Kevin E. Lofton and Dignity Health President and CEO Lloyd H. Dean are “each a CEO in the Office of the CEO” for the new health system, which will be based in Chicago.

“We didn’t combine our ministries to get bigger, we came together to provide better care for more people,” Dean said in a media release.

“We created CommonSpirit Health because in order to solve national health challenges, we need the breadth, scope, and resources to make a nationwide impact,” Dean said.

Lofton said CommonSpirit Health “will bring the expertise of a national health system to neighborhoods across the country.”

“Whether it’s a neurological institute in Arizona, a 25-bed critical access facility in North Dakota, a mobile lung cancer screening program in Tennessee, or a ‘hospital at home’ in Nebraska, CommonSpirit Health will expand the best approaches from across our new organization,” Lofton said. “Our whole will be much greater than the sum of our parts.”

The new health system has 150,000 employees and 25,000 physicians and advanced practice clinicians.

Dean noted that 27 million Americans remain uninsured, and life expectancy continues to fall, despite some progress made under the Affordable Care Act. He said CommonSpirit will focus on underserved populations and the social causes of poor health.

“Too many people still can’t access quality healthcare in their communities,” Dean says. “America’s healthcare system need big changes, and we have a big goal of improving the health of millions of people in this country.”

Lofton said CommonSpirit “will focus on treating the whole person, particularly the social causes of poor health that lead to needless suffering, unnecessary hospital visits, and premature deaths.”

“Our goal is to be the leader in every type of care, whether you need brain surgery, urgent care for the flu, or help managing your diabetes,” he said.

CHI and Dignity Health previously announced that the new ministry will retain the names of local facilities and services in the communities where they are located.

‘GAINING ECONOMIES OF SCALE’

Brad Haller, director in West Monroe Partners’ Mergers & Acquisitions practice, notes that “so far, the new entity has shown very little change to how they will actually deliver care.”

“While the organization has a name for the merged entity, CommonSpirit, both systems indicated they are going to continue operating under both the CHI and Dignity names in their local markets,” he says.

“The merger wasn’t about branding or changing the nature of its business, but rather gaining economies of scale and geographic footprint, which makes sense for the like-mindedness in the way they deliver care and manage operations,” he says.

Concerns had been raised during the merger talks that women’s healthcare services would be ill-affected under the consolidated health system. Haller says those concerns appear to have been addressed with California approved the merger with a stipulation that CommonSpirit “must maintain emergency services and women’s healthcare services for 10 years after the deal closes.

“(California) also required CommonSpirit to create a Homeless Health Initiative to support hospitalized homeless patients,” Haller says. “I would suspect that the newly merged organization will find more synergies in care delivery as time goes on, as most merged organizations find during the post-integration phase, but in the spirit of efficiency or expansion.”

“The merger wasn’t about branding or changing the nature of its business, but rather gaining economies of scale and geographic footprint, which makes sense for the like-mindedness in the way they deliver care and manage operations.”

—Brad Haller

Allan Baumgarten, a veteran observer of the hospital sector in Midwestern states, says several Dignity hospitals are considered “non-Catholic” and not subject to the Vatican guidelines, such as not performing tubal ligations.

“Those hospitals will be kept somewhat separate so they can continue to offer those services,” he says.

Baumgarten notes the odd choice of Chicago as a headquarters for CommonSpirit, “even though neither system has a presence there.”

“CHI has three small hospitals in Minnesota (Park Rapids, Breckenridge, LIttle Falls) and some nursing homes, but otherwise the combined system has only a small presence in the Midwest,” he says.

“Not sure what to say about the impact on care delivery,” Baumgarten says. “In theory, if one system has certain strengths, like better care management and discharge planning, thereby reducing the number of readmissions, it could share those strengths and practices with the other hospitals.”

“To gain efficiencies, you might see them agreeing on a single vendor for certain medical devices or commodity suppliers that all hospitals will have to use in the future,” he says. “In any of these mergers, health economists will tell you that most of the benefits could be achieved by contracts and strategic partnerships.”

CHI and Dignity announced their plans to merge in December 2017. The deal was expected to close at the end of 2018, but it was delayed for one month. No specific reason was given for the delay.

The name CommonSpirit Health was chosen in November from among more than 1,200 possible names. The health systems said they settled on that name because it represents a shared sense of missional service and because it resonates with the diverse populations being served, the organizations said.

“WE DIDN’T COMBINE OUR MINISTRIES TO GET BIGGER, WE CAME TOGETHER TO PROVIDE BETTER CARE FOR MORE PEOPLE.”

 

 

As small hospitals ally with big ones, do patients benefit?

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/as-small-hospitals-ally-with-big-ones-do-patients-benefit/2019/01/25/ccd50f2c-0a14-11e9-88e3-989a3e456820_story.html?utm_term=.44da63db320e

After seven years of a vigorous fight, Jim Hart worried he was running out of options.

Diagnosed with prostate cancer at age 60, Hart had undergone virtually every treatment — surgery, radiation and hormones — to eradicate it. But a blood test showed that his level of prostate-specific antigen, which should have been undetectable, kept rising ominously. And doctors couldn’t determine where the residual cancer was lurking.

“I didn’t like the sound of that,” said Hart, a retired international oil specialist for the federal government. “I wanted it gone,” he added, especially after learning that he had inherited the BRCA2 gene, making him vulnerable to other cancers.

So when Andrew Joel, Hart’s longtime urologist at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, mentioned the hospital’s membership in the Mayo Clinic Care Network and suggested consulting specialists at the Rochester, Minn., hospital for a second opinion, Hart enthusiastically agreed.

A Mayo immunologist told Joel about a new PET scan, not then available in the Washington area, that can detect tiny cancer hot spots. Hart flew to Mayo for the scan, which found cancer cells in one lymph node in his pelvis. He underwent chemotherapy at Virginia Hospital Center and five weeks of radiation at the Mayo Clinic. Since September 2016, there has been no detectable cancer.

“This collaboration was sort of a magic process,” Hart said. “I feel very fortunate.”

‘Benefit by association’

Hart’s experience showcases the promise of a much-touted but little understood collaboration in health care: alliances between community hospitals and some of the nation’s biggest and most respected institutions.

For prospective patients, it can be hard to assess what these relationships actually mean — and whether they matter.

Leah Binder, president and chief executive of the Leapfrog Group, a Washington-based patient safety organization that grades hospitals based on data involving medical errors and best practices, cautions that affiliation with a famous name is not a guarantee of quality.

“Brand names don’t always signify the highest quality of care,” she said. “And hospitals are really complicated places.”

Affiliation agreements are “essentially benefit by association, ” said Gerard Anderson, a professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “In some cases it’s purely branding and in other cases it’s a deep association.”

A key question is “how often does the community hospital interact with the flagship hospital? If it’s once a week, that’s one thing. If it’s almost never, that’s another,” Anderson said.

Feeling ‘plugged in’

To expand their reach, flagship hospitals including Mayo, the Cleveland Clinic and Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center have signed affiliation agreements with smaller hospitals around the country. These agreements, which can involve different levels of clinical integration, typically grant community hospitals access to experts and specialized services at the larger hospitals while allowing them to remain independently owned and operated. For community hospitals, a primary goal of the brand name affiliation is stemming the loss of patients to local competitors.

In return, large hospitals receive new sources of patients for clinical trials and for the highly specialized services that distinguish these “destination medicine” sites. Affiliations also boost their name recognition — all without having to establish a physical presence.

In some cases, large hospital systems have opted for a different approach, largely involving acquisition. Johns Hopkins acquired Sibley Memorial and Suburban hospitals in the Washington area, along with All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Fla. The latter was re-christened Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in 2016.

New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has embraced a hybrid strategy. It operates a ring of facilities surrounding Manhattan and has forged alliances with three partners in Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Florida.

“Every one of these models is different,” said Ben Umansky, managing director for research at the Advisory Board, a Washington-based consulting firm.

Local hospitals, he said, particularly those operating “in the shadows of giants,” may be better able to retain patients “by getting a name brand on their door. . . . There is a sense that they are plugged in.” (Virginia Hospital Center, for example, competes with Hopkins, MedStar Washington Hospital Center, which has an alliance with the Cleveland Clinic, and the Northern Virginia-based Inova system.)

Doctors can obtain speedy second opinions for their patients and streamline visits for those with complex or unusual medical needs, processes that can be daunting and difficult without connections.

Michael Kupferman, senior vice president of the MD Anderson Cancer Network, said it seeks to “elevate the quality of cancer care” by forming partnerships with “high-quality [hospitals] to keep patients at home and provide the imprimatur of MD Anderson.”

Virginia Hospital Center’s association with Mayo is “not just a branding affiliation, it’s a deep clinical affiliation,” said Jeffrey DiLisi, senior vice president and chief medical officer at the Arlington facility.

Despite extensive marketing, many patients seem unaware of the linkage. “We still think a lot about ‘How do we communicate this?’ ” DiLisi said.

Although affiliation agreements differ, many involve payment of an annual fee by smaller hospitals. Officials at Mayo and MD Anderson declined to reveal the amount, as did executives at several affiliates. Contracts with Mayo must be renewed annually, while some with MD Anderson exceed five years.

Acceptance is preceded by site visits and vetting of the community hospitals’ staff and operations. Strict guidelines control use of the flagship name.

“It is not the Mayo Clinic,” said David Hayes, medical director of the Mayo Clinic Care Network, which was launched in 2011. “It is a Mayo clinic affiliate.”

Of the 250 U.S. hospitals or health systems that have expressed serious interest in joining Mayo’s network, 34 have become members.

For patients considering a hospital that has such an affiliation, Binder advises checking ratings from a variety of sources, among them Leapfrog, Medicare, and Consumer Reports, and not just relying on reputation.

“In theory, it can be very helpful,” Binder said of such alliances. “The problem is that theory and reality don’t always come together in health care.”

Case in point: Hopkins’s All Children’s has been besieged by recent reports of catastrophic surgical injuries and errors and a spike in deaths among pediatric heart patients since Hopkins took over. Hopkins’s chief executive has apologized, more than a half-dozen top executives have resigned and Hopkins recently hired a former federal prosecutor to conduct a review of what went wrong.

“For me and my family, I always look at the data,” Binder said. “Nothing else matters if you’re not taken care of in a hospital, or you have the best surgeon in the world and die from an infection.”