Shared Decision Making Program Will Support High Value Healthcare Collaborative Effort
Health Dialog to Participate in Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) Project
<0> Health DialogKiran Ganda, 617-406-5239 </0>
Health Dialog today announced that it will support the High Value Healthcare Collaborative (HVHC) in delivering a program designed to meet the Triple Aim using an innovative Shared Decision Making approach. The Shared Decision Making program is the largest and most comprehensive of its kind, funded through a $26 million Innovation award from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) to HVHC. The project is supported by Funding Opportunity Number CMS-1C1-12-0001 from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. The HVHC award was the second highest to be made across the 107 recipients selected from more than 3,000 applicants.
The HVHC, comprised of 15 healthcare delivery system members, collectively serves 50 million patients across 17 states. The program delivered through the CMMI award will include approximately 1 million of these patients facing hip, knee, or spine surgery, diabetes, or congestive heart failure. Health Dialog, a leader in Shared Decision Making since 1997, has been selected to provide its award-winning medical decision aids to patients and Shared Decision Making training for staff and Patient and Family Activators (PFAs) across the 15 sites. Over the three-year award period, 1,845 healthcare workers will be trained and an estimated 48 Patient and Family Activator PFA positions will be created. PFAs will work directly with patients and their families, providing information and support throughout the decision-making process.
“We are honored to be part of this important initiative,” said James Tugendhat, CEO, Health Dialog. “Empowering patients to take control of their healthcare decisions is at the core of what we do. The collaboration with CMMI and HVHC will allow us to demonstrate the effects of Shared Decision Making nationwide, showing how the right information and support can improve quality, reduce costs, and make a real difference in patients’ lives.”
The program is expected to save $64 million dollars over three years, largely due to reduced utilization and costs that have been shown to occur when patients are engaged and empowered to make informed healthcare decisions based on their own values and preferences. Health Dialog’s Shared Decision Making offerings, including decision aids and coaching, have produced reductions in cost and utilization along with high patient satisfaction. In a randomized controlled trial published in the , the Health Dialog program reduced inpatient and outpatient elective surgeries by nearly 10% and hospital admissions for patients facing preference-sensitive medical conditions by over 11%.
The HVHC project is particularly significant because of the population it will reach. Principal Investigator, Dr. James N. Weinstein, CEO and President of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock health system remarked, “The greatest beneficiaries of this project will be high-cost patients with multiple chronic conditions who have been disenfranchised because of poor health literacy, poverty, minority status, or poorly managed care. Through patient engagement and activation and use of decision aids, these patients will become partners in their care decisions.”
Health Dialog Services Corporation is a leading provider of healthcare analytics and decision support. The firm is a private, wholly-owned subsidiary of Bupa, a global provider of healthcare services. Health Dialog helps healthcare payors improve healthcare quality while reducing overall costs. Company offerings include health coaching for medical decisions, chronic conditions, and wellness; population analytic solutions; and consulting services. Health Dialog helps individuals participate in their own healthcare decisions, develop more effective relationships with their physicians, and live healthier, happier lives. For more information please visit .
The HVHC, established in 2010, is a consortium of 15 healthcare delivery systems that collectively serve a market of more than 50 million people in 17 states. The mission of the HVHC is to lead national improvement of healthcare value – defined as quality and outcomes over costs across time – in a sustainable way. The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice serves as the facilitator and data convener for HVHC. Members of the HVHC include Baylor Health Care System, Beaumont Health System, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Dartmouth-Hitchcock, Denver Health, Intermountain Healthcare, Mayo Clinic, North Shore–LIJ Health System, MaineHealth, Providence Health and Services, Scott and White Healthcare, Sutter Health, UCLA Health System, University of Iowa Health Care, and Virginia Mason Medical Center.
A preference-sensitive medical condition is defined as a condition with two or more medically acceptable treatment options. Wennberg DE, Marr A, Lang L, O’Malley S, Bennett GB, “A Randomized Trial of a Telephone Care-Management Strategy”, , September 23, 2010, 363:1245-55.