Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health and Morehouse School of Medicine are partnering for a 10-year, $100 million partnership to develop and train more Black physicians, they said Dec. 17.
CommonSpirit Health has more than 1,000 care sites in 21 states, and Morehouse is a historically Black medical school in Atlanta.
Under the partnership, they aim to work together to reduce health disparities.
U.S. COVID-19 cases surpass 18 million, death toll tops 335,000. Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi, Julie Hyman, and Myles Udland discuss the latest news in the COVID-19 pandemic with Dr. Thomas McGinn, VP of Physician Enterprise for CommonSpirit.
I am not a "worrier".
But I worry about what has happened to the fabric of who we are as a nation, a profession, and our families during this extraordinary and unprecedented time.
It’s not just one thing.
Frankly, it’s hard to make this stuff up. And at the same time it’s hard to believe this has really happened.
I’m positive and forward looking by nature, but the most accurate thing I can say about how I feel at this moment is that I feel sad about all of this. It’s as simple as that.
I’m fortunate that I have the opportunity to work clinically as well as serve as the Chief Physician Executive for the Physician Enterprise at CommonSpirit Health. I feel blessed and fortunate to do this work. Clinically I have a small "flock" of patients that put up with my schedule and availability. In return they receive a concierge and comprehensive approach to care that includes availability by text and phone, secure patient portals, virtual and in person visits when appropriate. It works for them and for me; it adds joy, purpose and sustenance to my daily work. In addition to patients, my other practice is the Physician Enterprise itself; it is my job along with our PE Executive Team to take care of "it" and the people who work in "it". For me as I’m sure for you, this is a calling. I have always said I "get back" far more than I give and that I would pay for the privilege to do this work. I’m thankful, for the social purpose we share, and personally for an enriched family life that includes memories of life growing up, elders, a life partner, children and grandchildren.
I’d like to share a story. A young man goes to college, becomes a mechanical engineer, a pilot, flies medical missions to the Baja Peninsula in northern Mexico and works for a tech startup. After 2 years he realizes he has a different calling. It’s caring for others through the practice of medicine. He continues working but goes back to undergraduate school, completes his pre-med studies, successfully takes the MCAT, and attends medical school with a special interest in international health. As a medical student he works at a clinic in Burundi. During several trips to Burundi he brings to the clinic closer to 20th century technology including a revision of their solar systems, a newly developed electronic health record (they used index cards before), and satellite internet beamed from a fiber-optic backbone that resides on a high voltage tower in the mountains 8 miles from the clinic.
He survives these adventures, completes a combined residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics during which he travels to Uganda for a Pediatric oncology and oncology rotation, and then a 2 year Critical Care Fellowship.
As the Chief Critical Care Fellow, he worked on a team to re-vamp their Critical Care Units creating COVID-19 Critical Care, Covid-19 Medical Units and develop a "split ventilator protocol" with the ability to manage 2 patients with 2 separate ventilator circuits and 1 ventilator if the need arose.
He married during residency, and just before completing his training a little boy is born. He is a critical care intensivist, his wife a Nurse Practitioner. Critical Care is not without its risks. Even though critical care units are high risk, they are also more controlled and protocoled for safety. As we know critical care does not always happen "within the bubble of the critical care unit".
Consider this. A "rapid response" is called for a patient on the neurology unit. The team responds, they enter the room, the patient is being "bagged" with an AMBU bag that does not have a HEPA Filter. The patient deteriorates. O2 saturations in the 70’s. The intensivist decides to intubate. He asks for the PAPR (Power Air-Purifying Respirator); sorry, we don’t have one on the floor. The intensivist is given an n-95 mask that doesn’t fit. The patient is intubated and stabilized.
The patient is then tested for COVID-19. It’s positive. In that instance the entire team was exposed.
Waiting. No symptoms at day 4.5.
In an instant from joy to waiting, waiting to worry.
The cycle: Worry → Joy → Waiting.
We share these cycles of emotion. Different events, same emotions. We can’t necessarily change these things. What do these stories say to us? For me it’s that we must be servants to each other and humankind.
Together we will get to the other side of this. I have faith in all of us that this will be true.
Dr. Alisahah Cole will participate in the upcoming Southern Nevada Blue Ribbon Panel on Social Equity on January 12, 2021. The panel will bring together experts with an aim to create an analysis of the current racial equity landscape in the region, offer recommendations for addressing identified systemic inequities, and propose an implementation roadmap to work towards improved racial equity in Southern Nevada.
The Integrated Healthcare Association (IHA) honored three Dignity Health physician organizations for providing high-quality, affordable, patient-centered care in its 2019 Align. Measure. Perform. (AMP) program. The honorees are:
Excellence in Healthcare Award:
Mercy Medical Group/Dignity Health Medical Foundation
The Excellence in Healthcare Award represents the highest level of achievement, recognizing physician organizations that have succeeded in achieving strong quality results while effectively managing costs. To earn this award, physician organizations’ performance must rank in the top 50% for clinical quality, patient experience and cost for their commercial HMO population. Only 20 out of roughly 200 eligible physician organizations received this award.
Ronald P. Bangasser Memorial Award for Quality Improvement:
Central Valley Region: Dignity Health Medical Network - Central California
The Bangasser Award recognizes eight physician organizations — one from each of eight California regions — that demonstrated the greatest relative improvement in quality performance from measurement year 2018 to 2019.
Top 10% Patient Experience Domain:
Mercy Medical Group/Dignity Health Medical Foundation
To recognize the distinct contributions of each Triple Aim component in increasing and accelerating overall performance, IHA honors physician organizations with the highest levels of performance for each AMP Commercial HMO measurement domain. Specifically, this recognition acknowledges physician organizations that achieve the 90th percentile or above in one or more AMP domains: clinical quality, patient experience or total cost of care.
All three Dignity Health organizations were recognized Nov. 5 at the online 19th Annual IHA Stakeholders Meeting during an awards ceremony where virtual attendees included participating physician organizations, health plans and other stakeholders.
The 340B Program and CommonSpirit Health: The Impact on our Vulnerable Populations
1. Impacting the care of our most vulnerable patient populations:
The 340B Program allows our hospitals and clinics to champion the needs of our most vulnerable patient populations and advocate for their equitable access to high-quality, evidence-based health care. This includes a new diabetic in suburban Arkansas learning how to self-administer insulin, a mother struggling with post-partum depression in the Central Valley of California, and a veteran in rural Texas going blind with age-related macular degeneration. These individuals, and many, many more, are able to receive care, including life-saving medications, from CommonSpirit Health pharmacies participating in the 340B Program. And they are able to benefit from the innovative population-health programs, from virtual mental health patient navigation to comprehensive managed care for diabetes, that are improving care access and quality across the CommonSpirit Health enterprise.
2. Impacting our national network of safety-net hospitals and clinics:
Over 115 CommonSpirit Health hospitals, clinics, and infusion centers participate in the 340B Program, from rural community hospitals in the Midwest to large urban safety-net hospitals on the West Coast:
As a critical access hospital, St. Gabriel’s Hospital in Little Falls, MN provides compassionate, inclusive, and life-saving care to thousands of hard-working community members in rural Minnesota. Clinicians at St. Gabriel’s have also stood up a model treatment program for patients struggling with addiction to opioids, providing life-saving treatment for opioid use disorder to folks that would otherwise be out of luck.
St. Mary’s Medical Center in Long Beach, CA has a long history of opening its doors to those in need. Serving a particularly underserved and economically disadvantaged urban population in Southern California, St. Mary’s is committed to assuring equitable access for all to high-quality health care. This includes the CARE Center, a pioneering and comprehensive HIV treatment program founded at the rise of the AIDS crisis in 1986 that continues to provide life-saving care to the Long Beach community, regardless of ability to pay.
These CommonSpirit Health care sites, and many others, provide critical services for some of the most vulnerable members of our communities. The 340B Program allows these hospitals, clinics, and infusion centers to continue to be vital safety-net resources and national advocates for and leaders of equitable, holistic care.
3. Impacting the many diverse communities that we serve across this country:
CommonSpirit Health is committed to supporting the communities that it serves, through community benefits, philanthropy, and service. We acknowledge that health is not simply the absence of disease but rather a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being. That requires an acknowledgment and tackling of the social determinants of health. We can’t ignore the plight of homelessness and social isolation. Through cost-savings from the 340B Program, CommonSpirit Health is able to take on these social determinants through community investments, from supporting permanent supportive housing for individuals experiencing homelessness to reducing behavioral health stigma through providing Mental Health First Aid trainings in many of the communities we serve.
CommonSpirit Health Leads in Improving Quality and Outcomes for Patients while Reducing Medicare Spending by $70 Million.
16 Medicare Shared Savings Program ACOs realized $37 million in earned savings by providing high-quality value-based care to all
Chicago, Ill.—September 14, 2020—CommonSpirit Health, a nonprofit health system operating in 21 states, today announced that it earned $37 million in shared savings for the 2019 performance year, its performance-based share of $70 million in savings to Medicare. As evidence of CommonSpirit’s commitment to providing the best in value-based care, the system’s 16 accountable care organizations (ACOs) participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) also scored a quality average score of 94%.
"CommonSpirit Health is a growing community of healers and leaders building a high-performing population health engine for success in value-based payment programs,” said Bruce Swartz, Executive Vice President, Physician Enterprise for CommonSpirit Health. ” Our ACOs and clinical leaders are an essential driver of this strategy, demonstrating a clear commitment to compassion across the continuum of care by building strong relationships with our patients, proactively supporting their health and wellbeing in their communities, and modeling financial stewardship for sustainability."
Overall, the 16 ACOs improved care outcomes for approximately 321,000 Medicare beneficiaries. Through proactive engagement of vulnerable patients and a suite of innovative programs to address unmet medical, behavioral, and social needs, CommonSpirit’s ACOs reduced short-term inpatient hospital admissions and emergency department visits by 1%, long-term inpatient hospital stays by 21%, and increased primary care services by 2%.
Sixty-three percent of CommonSpirit’s MSSP ACOs, or 10 out of 16, generated savings for Medicare. Fifty-six percent received shared savings payments. The ACOs achieved the following:
• Rainier Health Network in Washington state reduced short-term inpatient hospitalizations by 2%, scored 96% on quality, and saved Medicare $20.8 million.
• Arkansas Health Network reduced short-term inpatient hospitalizations and emergency department visits by 2%, scored 92% on quality, and saved Medicare $12.9 million.
• Baylor St. Luke’s Health Network in Texas reduced MRI events by 4%, scored 92% on quality, and saved Medicare $10.8 million.
• Alegant Health Partners in Nebraska reduced inpatient hospitlizations by 4% and emergency department visits by 8%, scored 93% on quality, and saved Medicare $10.4 million.
• St. Rose Quality Care Network (NV), North State Quality Care Network (CA), Mission Health Care Network (TN), MercyOne ACOs (Iowa), and CHI Saint Joseph Health Partners (KY) also together saved Medicare $19 million.
CommonSpirit Health’s ACOs and clinically-integrated networks care for these Medicare ACO patients as part of the system’s much broader population of 2.4 million attributed patients under public and private value-based agreements – making CommonSpirit a leader among the nation’s value-based health systems.
CommonSpirit Health is a nonprofit, Catholic health system dedicated to advancing health for all people. It was created in February 2019 through the alignment of Catholic Health Initiatives and Dignity Health. CommonSpirit Health is committed to creating healthier communities, delivering exceptional patient care, and ensuring every person has access to quality health care. With a team of approximately 150,000 employees and 25,000 physicians and advanced practice clinicians, CommonSpirit Health operates 137 hospitals and more than 1000 care sites across 21 states. In FY 2019, Catholic Health Initiatives and Dignity Health had combined revenues of nearly $29 billion and provided $4.45 billion in charity care, community benefit, and unreimbursed government programs. Learn more at www.commonspirit.org
CommonSpirit Health Closes Care Gaps with Personalized, Community-Based Care Navigation in Partnership with Docent Health.
CommonSpirit Health, a nonprofit health system serving patients in 137 hospitals and 1000+ care sites across 21 states, and Docent Health are expanding their virtual care navigator program to build on the program’s success in improving health outcomes for maternity and orthopedic patients. Docent Health is a leader in consumer engagement and patient navigation technology and services. Partners since 2016, the virtual care navigtion program has paired patients with care navigators who are in and of CommonSpirit’s communities and provide individualized guidance to patients.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has stated that achieving health equity and driving improvements for all patients requires further investment in tools that address social determinants and close care gaps. CMS notes that social determinants of health – including housing, transportation, education, social isolation, and more – affect minorities in particular, and negatively impact access to care and health outcomes. However, even with the recent attention on racial injustice and the correlation to poor health, CMS finds efforts to lessen these inequities often reach a fraction of the population, perhaps as few as two percent of all patients. Both payers and providers cite outdated tools, resource complexity, and bandwidth constraints as factors limiting their ability to elevate support for social determinants.
Docent Health’s engagement model captures and aligns numerous unique patient attributes and maps CommonSpirit’s resources to those of local, community-based organizations. The program will expand not only geographically to include more of CommonSpirit’s care sites across the country, but the virtual care navigators will also improve continuity of care among the health system’s hospitals and extend to primary care practices, behavioral health specialists, and community-based organizations.
“We simply cannot place enough value on the improvements we’ve seen in our patients’ health as a result of the individualized, community-based navigator partners who augment the work of our clinical teams,” said Alisahah Cole, MD, system vice president of population health innovation and policy at CommonSpirit Health. “The real-time capabilities from Docent Health’s platform take away much of the burden of care coordination, allowing us to scale services, which is particularly important for vulnerable or underserved patients in CommonSpirit’s communities. We are excited to bring Docent Health’s human-centric model to more of our patients with complex care needs.”
Using artificial intelligence to analyze care data, Docent Health’s platform can quickly coordinate personalized care by predicting and generating the right referrals into CommonSpirit’s workflows. Together, the technology and care navigator partners individualize support and proactively guide patients to local resources, educational programs, and care preparation. The multi-language cloud-based navigation platform interprets unique patient attributes in real-time to streamline interactions with the patient such as reminders, phone calls or text notifications, resource recommendations, and surveys, in addition to sending tasks out to care navigators and clinical care teams.
CommonSpirit and Docent Health are expanding their partnership based in part on the results of a multi-year study that quantified how Docent Health’s innovative technology and human care navigator program has successfully improved patient outcomes. The model also lowered the cost of care across all patient types, including among vulnerable populations and specifically for Medicaid patients. The study included more than 10,000 of CommonSpirit’s patients and found:
New mothers had a 10 percent shorter average length of stay (2.29 vs. 2.46 days)
Medicaid neonates with complications had a 1.8-day shorter length of stay (4.3 vs. 6.13 days)
There was a 37 percent reduction in pre-term births for mothers on Medicaid (7.5 percent vs. 11.9 percent)
Orthopedic patients had a 45 percent shorter average length of stay (1.93 vs. 3.5 days)
30-day readmission rates for orthopedic patients were 71 percent lower (1 percent vs. 3.5 percent)
“As an industry, we’ve known that community-based culturally responsive programs work but we’ve lacked the technology to deliver them cost-effectively, at scale. Our tech-enabled approach is driving better outcomes for physicians and helping to build trust and engagement, and improve health in the communities that need the support the most,” said Royal Tuthill, co-founder and president of Docent Health. “We are honored to continue our work with CommonSpirit to address health inequities in more of their communties, which is especially needed during this challenging time.”
The virtual care navigator model has led to more comprehensive support for patients with complex health care needs, and ensures a greater degree of care continuity. An internal reseach study analyzed data related to 10,220 of CommonSpirit’s patients between the years 2016 and 2018. Over sixty percent of patients in the research study were either Medicaid or Medicare patients, and were from a mix of urban, suburban, and rural communities. CommonSpirit’s study controlled for numerous variables, including age, race and ethnicity, and physician.
The collaboration is expected to extend Docent Health’s care navigation technology and services across 11 states and more than 60 of CommonSpirit’s care sites.
CommonSpirit Health is a nonprofit, Catholic health system dedicated to advancing health for all people. It was created in February 2019 through the alignment of Catholic Health Initiatives and Dignity Health. With its national office in Chicago and a team of approximately 125,000 employees and 25,000 physicians and advanced practice clinicians, CommonSpirit Health operates 137 hospitals and more than 1000 care sites across 21 states. In FY 2020, Catholic Health Initiatives and Dignity Health had combined revenues of nearly $29.6 billion and provided $4.6 billion in charity care, community benefit, and unreimbursed government programs. Learn more at www.commonspirit.org.
Docent Health is a venture-backed healthcare experience technology and services company focused on helping healthcare organizations transform and truly embrace a consumer-centric approach to healthcare. The company’s mission-driven platform and services combine digital and human interactions to guide customers on journeys tailored to their specific needs and preferences. By utilizing Docent Health’s platform, health systems and payors can provide personalized, empathetic experiences at scale and support a multitude of complex care pathways. For more information, visit www.docenthealth.com or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn