Staying Relevant

In my last blog, I told about the site visit to WMHS by representatives from Cigna, a national health insurer, earlier this week.  In attendance were their Chief Operating Officer for the mid-Atlantic region, finance people, a physician, their director for Care Coordination, two IPA administrators and their director for informatics.  They were exceedingly complimentary of what we have accomplished and how we are approaching "staying relevant."  

In their interactions with hospitals, health systems and physician practices, they are routinely encountering that "deer in the headlights look" from both health care executives and physicians.  There is so much uncertainty as to how to deliver care in this ever changing health care environment.  However, they were so impressed with our transition to value-based care delivery and the associated success that we have been experiencing.  They said that we have figured out how to not only stay relevant, but to continue to challenge ourselves and our entire organization on reducing use rates; further reducing admissions, readmissions and length of stay; focusing on new quality and cost initiatives and the list goes on.  We have been told repeatedly that every hospital should be required to visit with us and learn about our most successful care delivery transition.  Pretty awesome!