Intermountain Healthcare and healthcare growth services firm Oxeon have co-founded and launched Empiric Health, an independent company that will address variation in healthcare costs and outcomes for both clinicians and health system administrators.
Empiric’s initial offering is based on Salt Lake City-based Intermountain’s ProComp program, which clinicians built to help them understand how differences in the way surgical procedures are performed – from supply utilization to staffing – impact patient outcomes and overall cost of care. To date, the program has created operational efficiencies resulting in more than $90 million in savings for Intermountain and its patients, including reducing supply costs and length of stay, the co-founders said.
In addition to Intermountain, Loma Linda University Health in Southern California will serve as an initial anchor customer.
Oxeon’s website explains that Intermountain’s clinical leadership and ProComp program formed the foundation and proof of concept for Empiric Health, while Oxeon crafted the business plan, designed the commercial product, and launched the company. Intermountain and Oxeon together provided seed funding to launch the business, and Oxeon will serve as the founding team, build the initial product, and hire a management team to lead and scale the company.
The co-founders said Empiric Health will use actual clinical and patient outcomes data, structured according to patent-pending, physician-approved groupings to ensure accuracy. Once variation is identified, clinicians are then engaged individually or at a service line level to discuss the best way to deliver care.
“The collaboration between Intermountain Healthcare and Empiric Health will help caregivers improve patient outcomes and lower costs,” says Marc Harrison, M.D., president and CEO at Intermountain Healthcare, in a prepared statement. “Through Empiric Health, we will share our proven methodology for delivering better care—along with significant ROI and bottom-line impact—with other health systems.”
