Congressional Briefing Highlights Importance and Benefits of Engaging Patients Throughout Continuum of Care

The Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC) hosted a briefing on Capitol Hill that focused on the patient-centered approach to increasing quality and efficiency of care.  HLC recently released a publication that goes hand-in-hand with the topic of this briefing, Optimizing Healthcare for High-Need Patients: A Playbook.  The two experts who presented effectively illustrated the important message that including patients in the discussion benefits all parties involved, and should be viewed as an integral part of the healthcare delivery system.

Julie Cerese, Ph.D., RN, Group Senior Vice President for Vizient, Inc discussed how patients and families can engage at many levels- direct care, organizational design and governance, and policy making – demonstrating that any notion of engagement being more of a hindrance than help is a complete myth.  Taking advantage of the wealth of data from Vizient’s many members, 250 organizations were surveyed to compile patient and family engagement best practices for improvements in quality, safety, and operations.  Dr. Cerese recommended measuring patient and family engagement as part of the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) program.

Andrei Gonzales, M.D., Assistant Vice President of Product Management and Value-Based Payments for Change Healthcare, talked about episodes of care, and how in value-based models it is critical to think about care from the patient perspective and help them coordinate complicated care.  He remarked that ACOs and medical homes are great for engaging primary care providers, but episodes of care are more effective at engaging specialists, leading to better outcomes for patients.  He offered examples of compelling cost savings in tandem with quality improvement across programs.