As the Department of Health and Human Services, and the HHS Secretary, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, have indicated their intention to tie 30 percent of Medicare fee-for-service payments to quality or value through alternative payment models by 2016, and as much as 50 percent by 2018, HHS recently launched its Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network to help advance the work being done across sectors to increase the adoption of value-based payments and alternative payment models.
In that context, the Charlotte-based Premier, Inc. on March 25 released a statement attributed to Blair Childs, Premier’s senior vice president of public affairs. The statement reads:
“For more than a decade, members of the Premier alliance have been national leaders implementing payment and delivery reforms that improve quality while safely reducing costs. We support the goals of the Healthcare Payment and Advanced Learning Network, and will actively share our learnings in the hopes that we can assist others that are just beginning this important journey.
Working with our members, Premier has perfected a proven, evidence-based methodology for performance improvement. We know that learning networks that bring providers together with shared goals and common measures can generate tremendous results in a relatively short period of time. Our QUEST collaborative, for instance, has saved $13.2B, avoided 160,000 deaths, prevented 21,700 harms and prevented 55,800 readmissions in just six years. In addition, we manage one of the nation’s largest collaboratives dedicated to population health, bringing together 380 hospitals in 70 markets to build test and scale solutions that drive providers toward advanced, value-based payment.
Making the American healthcare system the world’s best requires new incentives and accountability to foster cooperation and partnerships among providers, payers and patients. We are committed to working with HHS and the private sector to make these ambitious goals attainable.”
