New roles and routes on WIHI

Madge Kaplan writes:

The next WIHI broadcast — New Roles, New Routes for Managing Populations — will take place on Thursday, June 19, from 2 to 3 PM ET, and I hope you'll tune in.

Our guests will include:

• Trissa Torres, MD, MSPH, FACPM, Senior Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement
• D. Clay Ackerly II, MD, MSc, Associate Medical Director, Population Health and Continuing Care, Partners Healthcare; Assistant Chief Medical Officer, Non-Acute Services, Massachusetts General Hospital
• L. Gordon Moore, MD, Director, Ideal Medical Practices Project; Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Family Medicine, University of Rochester
• Jennie Chin Hansen, CEO, American Geriatrics Society

If you’re wondering why health care quality and clinical leaders have been talking a lot more with their counterparts in finance or IT, look no further than the latest value-based contract they’ve likely just entered into with a payer. Within a hospital, these leaders may be putting their heads together to figure out how to deliver better care and better value for whole populations of patients. How might their data systems, for instance, help them better understand the utilization patterns and needs of everyone they see with Type 2 Diabetes? Or, within an accountable care organization (ACO) comprising a major hospital system, several physician practices, and a skilled nursing facility, how can the representative senior teams guide operations to reflect new, shared responsibilities and forge new ways to work together?

It’s early going with these new types of arrangements, and no one has it all figured out. But as organizations from across the continuum of care get up to speed, they’re eager to share what they’re learning. We’ll provide this opportunity on the June 19, 2014, WIHI: New Roles, New Routes for Managing Populations, anchored by WIHI host Madge Kaplan and IHI’s Senior Vice President Dr. Trissa Torres. Dr. Torres, a long-standing medical director, has many years of experience from her work in Michigan developing greater collaboration between health care delivery organizations and surrounding communities to improve population health. At IHI, she is currently helping to frame the skill sets all leaders need to accelerate this type of change on a broader scale. The June 19 WIHI will also tap into the on-the-ground experience of Dr. Clay Ackerly, whose title at Partners Healthcare, “Associate Medical Director of Population Health and Continuing Care,” speaks to the new responsibilities he has and that are in store for leaders like him. Dr. L. Gordon Moore, with years of experience helping to redesign primary care, is now working with office practices to enlarge this vision to encompass population health.

Rounding out the June 19 WIHI panel is the CEO of the American Geriatrics Society, Jennie Chin Hansen, whose pioneering work in San Francisco helped lay the groundwork for the comprehensive and integrated national program known as PACE. She understands well the needs of older patients, an increasing number of whom now receive their health care in hospitals, clinics, and community settings that are operating under shared savings agreements with Medicare.

Everyone will walk away from the June 19 WIHI with some good ideas to carry forward, including your own ideas and experiences which the panelists are very eager to hear about. To get ready for the program, you might want to try out a population management assessment tool that IHI has developed. See you on June 19!

I hope you’ll tune in for this essential discussion and share your ideas and potential solutions. You can enroll for the broadcast here.