Tacoma, Wash.-based MultiCare Health System and Salt Lake City-based Health Catalyst announced this week a new agreement that expands an existing analytics program while joining forces on a shared-risk project to achieve $25 million of measurable outcome improvements annually.
MultiCare Health System, which consists of five hospitals and 130 other locations, has used data analytics technology from Health Catalyst since 2010 and the new agreement expands that relationship with the aim of enhancing the quality and lowering the cost of care, according to a MultiCare news release.
As part of the new partnership, MultiCare signed an enterprise-wide technology subscription agreement, giving the health system access to Health Catalyst’s entire library of technology solutions.
It also has signed a “significant” professional services agreement in which MultiCare and Health Catalyst will work to achieve a shared objective of $25 million of measureable improvements in outcomes per year through a team of data architects, analysts and improvement experts.
As part of the contract, Health Catalyst has agreed to put a portion of the professional services contract “at risk,” tied directly to the achievement of the annual $25 million improvement goal. Health Catalyst has similar long-term, shared risk relationships with Partners Healthcare and Allina Health.
MultiCare also has made a direct investment in Health Catalyst, as a participant in Health Catalyst’s recently-closed Series E funding round.
“This agreement with Health Catalyst is the culmination of a six-year partnership that started small but which has repeatedly proven its value and we believe will significantly accelerate improvements in quality and performance for MultiCare,” Florence Chang, executive vice president and chief operating officer of MultiCare, said in a statement. “We have made significant progress with outcomes improvements over the last few years working with Health Catalyst, and we now believe we can take our efforts to the next level by deepening our investment in the right technology and expertise to achieve system-wide outcomes improvements.”
According to MultiCare officials, each year, an executive governance committee comprised of C-level executives from MultiCare and Health Catalyst will agree to a prioritized list of data-driven improvement projects with specific, measurable outcomes goals for each project. Then the team of data architects, analysts and improvement experts will focus their efforts on these projects. A portion of Health Catalyst’s economic rewards will be directly tied to the attainment of these goals.
“We expect that this process of using analytics to prioritize projects, in combination with risk-sharing economics, will encourage far more focus and alignment than is found in traditional health system-vendor relationships,” Anna Loomis, chief financial officer of MultiCare, said.
In its previous partnership with Health Catalyst, MultiCare has utilized its data analytics in specific projects to improve care and outcomes for patients. Two years ago, the health system launched a multi-disciplinary pneumonia workgroup using Health Catalyst’s pneumonia application on top of the company’s Late-Binding Data Warehouse. Through this project, MultiCare reduced the pneumonia mortality rate by 16 percent and reduced pneumonia readmissions by 24 percent.
“We have experienced success partnering with Health Catalyst to bring the right technology and expertise to bear to actually improve outcomes, as evidenced by our work to improve outcomes for our pneumonia patients,” Christopher Kodama, M.D., president of MultiCare Connected Care, MultiCare’s accountable care organization, said in a statement. “We believe that our expanded and deepened relationship will enable us to significantly accelerate the breadth and depth of these kinds of outcomes improvement projects, which will directly benefit patients and strengthen MultiCare Health.”
Dan Burton, CEO of Health Catalyst, said in a statement, “Our experience with MultiCare as a customer and now as an investor has been uniformly positive and we’re excited about this significant expansion of our relationship. Our shared experience has taught us both that transforming healthcare requires more than great software—you must combine technology with exceptional people with the experience and know-how to improve outcomes. This long-term relationship brings those elements together, including a stellar team of data architects, process improvement experts and clinicians who we are honored to work with as teammates at Health Catalyst.”
