A San Francisco-based company has started a nationwide tour aimed at kickstarting dialogue between local healthcare leaders to help them tackle complex problems within their communities.
McKesson's Better Health Tour, which has already been through Portland, Boston and Minneapolis, "connect[s] local industry innovators and offer them the opportunity to meet and learn from others in their community and discuss opportunities for closer collaboration," McKesson VP and GM of Decision Management Matthew Zubiller (right) told FierceHealthcare in an exclusive interview. "Our hope is that the events serve as a catalyst, fostering innovation that will lead to a more effective system and better healthcare outcomes for patients."
The tour takes a multi-pronged approach, Zubiller said, addressing a wide array of healthcare issues, including improving quality of care, patient engagement and inefficiency within healthcare.
"The healthcare industry--and the nation as a whole--needs to embrace conversations related to improving the business of healthcare and safeguarding high-quality, cost-effective patient care," Zubiller said. Meaningful change within the healthcare system means more than concepts like digitized records or patient empowerment, Zubiller told FierceHealthcare--lasting reforms will require "disruptive and collaborative innovation across the industry."
Part of the aim of the tour is to identify the alliances and conditions necessary to deliver quality care within individual communities. Three factors are essential to create an innovative, cost-effective care environment within a specific region, Zubiller told Forbes: alignment between local stakeholders, value of care, and venue of care.
Thus far, the tour has incorporated local healthcare leaders and experts, according to the article, such as Thompson Aderinkomi, founder and CEO of Retrace Health, during its Minneapolis-St. Paul stage.
It's an ideal time for such an initiative with the very nature of healthcare delivery in flux, Zubiller told FierceHealthcare. As healthcare shifts from a fee-for-service to value-based reimbursement model, he said payers, providers and employers must be on the same page for it.
"By waiting for the other to make the first move, no progress will be made," he said. "Bringing together health leaders to discuss new technologies that can be adopted and agree upon what we're all trying to accomplish will facilitate movement toward value-based design, reimbursement and care."
Collaboration between leaders and communities is an essential piece of the healthcare puzzle as well; a collaborative initiative in Minnesota cut readmissions by over 4,500 and saved more than $40 million, FierceHealthcare previously reported.
To learn more:
- read the Forbes article