ACO Collaboratives
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Contact Jeff Petry to learn how you can take part in Premier's ACO Collaboratives.
The Drive to High-Value Healthcare
What is an accountable care organization?
Accountable care organizations (ACOs), while still evolving, are expected to connect groups of providers who are willing and able to take responsibility for improving the health status, efficiency and experience of care for a defined population. An effective ACO model will include:
- Patient-centered health homes that deliver primary care and coordinate with other providers.
- Aligned networks of specialists, ancillary providers and hospitals focused on outcomes.
- Explicit care integration and coordination mechanisms
- Payer Provider Partnership relationships and reimbursement models that facilitate and reward high value, not high volume, healthcare.
- Population health information infrastructure to enable community-wide care coordination.
Why create an ACO?
Accountable care organizations (ACOs) are widely viewed as a way to transform healthcare delivery to address these concerns simultaneously.
Premier's ACO Collaboratives
An effective ACO will require a very different set of operating activities than those of today’s typical hospital system. Success will depend on the ACO's ability to improve care across all sites of care in a community and will be broader in scope. This will be difficult even for the most advanced systems. To assist members in developing these capabilities, Premier's ACO Collaboratives will:
- Speed implementation and lower the risk of developing market leading ACOs, providing expert input needed to build key ACO operating activities such as health homes, bundled payment models, population data management and IT.
- Work with policy makers to design ACO legislation and shape possible government projects.
- Develop early ACO contracts with CMS and other payers.
- Create shared tool kits, best practices and contracting models to facilitate the goals of accountable care (i.e., lower costs, improved quality and increased patient satisfaction).
- Develop standard performance metrics to manage population health, identify improvement opportunities and enhance market position with payers, employers and government.
- Position Premier Collaborative members as the national leaders in improving the value of our healthcare system.
Two Collaborative tracks
To assist members in developing accountable care capabilities, Premier is creating two collaboratives.
ACO Implementation Collaborative
The ACO Implementation Collaborative will consist of members who can pursue accountability for a portion of their population today, evolving from fee for service to value-driven business models by modifying existing payer contracts. The Collaborative formally convened for its first meeting and public launch at the Kick-off meeting in Washington, DC.
ACO Readiness Collaborative
The ACO Readiness Collaborative will work to develop the organization, skills, team, operational capability and tools necessary to become an ACO and ultimately join the Implementation Collaborative. The Readiness Collaborative formally launched in June 2010 at Premier's annual Breakthroughs Conference.
Learn more
We are selectively adding new members to the collaborative. For more information, please contact Jeff Petry, VP, Business Development, Premier Inc. or contact the Premier Solution Center at 800.805.4608.