WellStar Health System announced it is the first health system in Georgia to participate in a new collaborative, value-based care Hospital Incentive Program (HIP) agreement with Humana. HIP is designed to provide high-quality, coordinated care for Humana commercial patients.
 
Through HIP, WellStar and Humana will align to deliver integrated care and reduce duplicative services, hospital readmissions and complication rates in acute care inpatient admissions with compensation based on quality improvement and performance. The collaboration centers on three key areas – patient experience, patient safety and patient outcomes – as determined by a number of measures that address hospital-associated infection rates, care coordination, palliative care and more.
 
WellStar, one of the most integrated health systems in the country, operates under one standard of care across its entire system supported by its physician-led service line infrastructure and the deployment of the EPIC EMR in all its hospitals and employed physician sites. The HIP program ties directly into WellStar’s focus of providing high-quality, integrated care to its patients and the communities it serves. It further aligns WellStar with the quality improvement initiatives of its clinically integrated physician network, WellStar Clinical Partners (WCP). Within WCP, groups of doctors, hospitals and other health care providers come together voluntarily to provide coordinated high-quality care to patients. Performance reviews show this type of integrated care makes significant improvements in the quality of care for patients, while achieving cost savings.
 
“The goal of coordinated care is to ensure patients, especially the chronically ill, get the right care at the right time, while avoiding unnecessary duplication of services and preventing medical errors,” said John Brennan, M.D., executive vice president and chief clinical integration officer at WellStar Health System. WellStar has accomplished this goal in its Medicare MSSP ACO program. With quality scores of 92 percent, patient care coordination scores of 88 percent and savings to Medicare in excess of $57 million since its inception, WellStar has demonstrated its ability to accomplish the triple aim of healthcare (higher quality, exceptional patient satisfaction and lower costs) in identified patient populations. The Humana HIP provides an opportunity to apply the triple aim of healthcare to Humana commercial patients.
 
“This is truly what value-based healthcare is about,” said Candice Saunders, president and CEO at WellStar Health System. “Through an unwavering focus on meeting the needs and expectations of our patients, WellStar is able to deliver high-quality, cost effective healthcare to the communities we serve.”