Accountable Care Organization, Healthcare Big Data, Healthcare Portal, and ACO Implementation Resources
FEATURED ARTICLES: ACO
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Appalachian Regional Healthcare System Implements Allscripts EHR
The Appalachian Regional Healthcare System, serving the mountainous region known as the “High Country” of northwest North Carolina and northeast Tennessee, recently implemented Sunrise Clinical Manager (SCM), an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system from Allscripts Healthcare Solutions. The solution is expected to aid Appalachian in care coordination, connectivity, and graphical interface of electronic medical records. By Wendy Grafius, contributing writer
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A Big Step Forward For Stage 2 Meaningful Use3/30/2012It looks at though CMS has been able to realize its Meaningful Use Stage 2 goal through the parameters spelled out recently that are focused primarily on electronic information exchange among providers, and between providers and patients. By Rich Temple, Executive Consultant for Beacon Partners
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Physicians Using HIT “Optimistic”11/26/2013
Doctors using HIT are optimistic about it once it is fully integrated according to one new study By Katie Wike, contributing writer
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Former Beacon Community HIE Continues Shift To Independent Entity11/14/2013
San Diego Health Connect adds two healthcare systems, continue shift from federally funded initiative into an independent community-supported entity By Wendy Grafius, contributing writer
CASE STUDIES & WHITE PAPERS
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Achieving Success With The 5010 / ICD-10 Change-Over2/8/2012SuccessEHS is a nationally acclaimed vendor providing Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Practice Management solutions with Integrated Medical Billing Services.
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Enhance The Quality Of Care, While Reducing Costs9/6/2012
Read this analyst white paper, Sophisticated Solutions to Optimize Healthcare Delivery, and see how enterprise content management solutions can enable your organization to optimize patient care, reduce the cost of healthcare, and improve clinician satisfaction and overall organizational productivity.
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The Path to Population Health Management: Creating An IT Foundation For A Successful ACO10/22/2014
Healthcare organizations across the U.S. are investing significant resources in re-architecting their care delivery infrastructures to enable them to adapt successfully to new, value-based Accountable Care Organization (ACO) payment and delivery models. As these entities prepare to go “at risk” and take outcomes-based capitated or bundled payments, they face a broad set of challenges. These challenges range from acquiring or partnering for resources that will enable them to deliver and control the full continuum of care, to understanding their new cost structures and determining if they can survive and thrive financially in an ACO world.
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Brigham And Women’s Hospital Saves Over $9M, Improves MT Productivity 123%4/16/2012A 730-bed nonprofit teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a founding member of Partners Healthcare System, Brigham and Women’s Hospital is a world leader in patient care and research. The organization wanted to upgrade its existing transcription process to eliminate multiple medical transcription serviceorganizations (MTSOs) contracts and to address increasingly complex technical and billing infrastructures. The expensive, slow system hampered clinicians’ ability to maximize use of transcribed reports to diagnose and plan patient care.
FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK
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The Problem With Consumerism In Healthcare
Many industry leaders championed a free market approach to healthcare during the 12th Annual World Health Care Congress last week. Here are a few key reasons why I don’t think this model is “the fix” our industry so desperately needs.
ABOUT ACCOUNTABLE CARE ORGANIZATIONS (ACO)
An Accountable Care Organization (ACO) utilizes a payment and care delivery system that bases payments to providers on quality metrics and seeks to reduce the total cost of care for a certain population of patients. ACOs use a range of payment models and consist of groups of coordinated healthcare providers that provide care to groups of patients. ACOs are accountable to a third-party payer and the group of patients for the appropriateness, quality, and efficiency of the health services they provide.
In 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) set forth initial guidelines for ACOs to be created under the Medicare Shared Savings Program. These guidelines contained all necessary steps required for a physician, health care provider, or hospital to voluntarily participate in ACOs.
The quality measures used to evaluate an ACO's performance as defined by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) fall into five domains. These domains are patient/caregiver experience, care coordination, patient safety, preventative health, and at-risk population/frail elderly health.
The three stakeholders in an ACO are the providers, payers, and patients. Providers are a network of hospitals, physicians, and other healthcare professionals. The primary payer is the federal government, Medicare, but also includes other payers such as private insurances or employee-purchased insurance. The patient population of an ACO will primarily consist of Medicare beneficiaries, but in larger ACOs can also include those who are homeless and uninsured.
FEATURED NEWS
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ACOs Face Interoperability Barriers2/8/2016
According to a new report, a lack of out-of-network interoperability is the biggest obstacle facing ACOs today. By Katie Wike, contributing writer
ACO NEWS ARTICLES
- Upcoming Webinar: Data-Driven Care: The Key To Accountable Care Delivery From A Physician Group Perspective
- WEDI Releases Guide On HIPAA Transactions Requiring ICD-10 Codes
- Automated Quality Reporting Through EHRs Can Result In Significant Efficiencies And Care Improvements
- CMS Releases Updated Data On EHR Adoption
- West Florida ACO Chooses Sandlot Solutions As Partner In Patient Health Information Management