Four of the largest non-profit health providers in the state have joined with Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) to create The Partnership for a Healthy Arkansas, a Shared Service Organization (SSO) designed to be an innovative collaboration to improve healthcare quality and lower healthcare costs for patients and providers throughout Arkansas.
The healthcare provider partners include Baptist Health, St. Bernards Healthcare, The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), and Washington Regional Medical System.
The organization isn’t a business merger. But it is a meeting of the best minds from the five different organizations all focused on meeting the daunting challenges of improving patient care while reducing costs in a state that ranks 49th in the nation in health outcomes – which is linked to having one of the lowest per capita incomes in the country.
Washington Regional Medical System President and CEO Bill Bradley, chairman of the new organization, said the five groups share a common commitment to deliver the best healthcare and health value to Arkansas citizens.
“Because all members of this collaboration are headquartered in Arkansas and we are all rooted in a not-for-profit mission, we share a synergy and a focus on improving the financing and delivery of healthcare to Arkansans, resulting in better healthcare for all,” Bradley said.
The partnership came about after extensive discussions on how best to improve healthcare in the state. Chris Barber, president and CEO of St. Bernards Healthcare in Jonesboro, who was elected vice-chairman of the partnership, said the organizations came to the conclusion that collaboration on innovative health improvement and efficiency initiatives across the state was the right approach. Barber said an advantage is the partnership allows each entity to retain their focus on their communities’ needs while learning best practices from each other.
Examples of potential collaborative efforts include information technology, customer call centers, patient care management and coordination, expensive bio-medical equipment maintenance, and quality and financial data analysis.
The partnership is focusing on three main areas to achieve cost savings and performance improvement: Operational Shared Services, Population Health Shared Services and Clinical Improvement Shared Services.
“Specific programs in these three areas will reduce duplication, share the cost of expensive operations and improve our performance for the benefit of patients and insurance plan members,” said Baptist Health President and CEO Troy Wells, who was elected secretary/treasurer of The Partnership. “To be successful, we will engage our affiliated physicians as leaders and partners in many initiatives.”
Wells said UAMS and Baptist Health are already working together, with physicians, to reduce duplication and improve quality. UAMS vascular surgeons and physiatrists are staffing Baptist Health clinical programs, assisting with vascular surgery needs and also admitting inpatient rehabilitation patients. UAMS collaborates with St. Bernards and Washington Regional through its regional programs, and partners on family medicine residency training and telemedicine.
Other areas where this new partnership will be working with physicians to achieve similar outcomes include high-risk pregnancy, geriatrics, and dialysis.
The partnership has stated its goal is to facilitate cooperation between the health systems and Arkansas BCBS to provide the best care at the lowest cost for the state’s most financially vulnerable individuals, as well as those residents who receive employer-sponsored coverage, whether self-funded or fully insured.
Having Arkansas BCBS participate in this effort is unique among such organizations nationwide. Steve Spaulding, senior vice-president of Enterprise Networks, Arkansas BCBS, said they share a lot in common with the hospitals and even physicians in the state in being focused on providing value to the people who live here.
“A lot of times in our efforts to provide that value, we duplicate some services that we believe could be consolidated and done better, representing more value for the customers we and the hospitals take care of,” Spaulding said. “Hospitals are interested in providing the best quality care possible. We are interested in making sure we purchase the best value in healthcare for our customers from those providers. It only makes sense we should try to create more value in collaboration with each other as opposed to an arm’s length relationship trying to create value independent of one another.”
Roxane Townsend, MD, vice chancellor of clinical programs for UAMS and CEO of UAMS Medical Center, said the state is fortunate to have the leading health systems and the state’s largest health insurer join together.
“With the rapid changes in healthcare, it is more important than ever to provide quality healthcare at the lowest possible cost,” Townsend said. “By working together, we can share best practices and reduce duplication to achieve these goals.”
She said UAMS and Baptist Health already are working together to reduce duplication in two clinical areas: vascular surgery and inpatient rehabilitation. More areas of clinical cooperation are under consideration. In addition, UAMS collaborates with St. Bernards and Washington Regional through its regional programs, partnering on family medicine residency training, telemedicine and a variety of clinical programs including family medicine, geriatrics and high-risk pregnancy.
The partnership was the second SSO announced for Arkansas in 2015. Earlier CHI St. Vincent, one of the state’s largest healthcare providers, and Conway Regional Medical Center formed the Arkansas Health Alliance which pledged to be active statewide in creating alliances to help both small and larger hospitals become leaner and more efficient.
