HLC Capitol Hill Briefing Focuses on Driving, Measuring Healthcare Value

As the U.S. healthcare system continues to make the transition from a fee-for-service orientation to value-based care, the Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC) hosted a briefing today on how value can be advanced and assessed. Experts from different health sectors spotlighted policy improvements that need to be put into place in order to enable patient-centered collaboration.

At the briefing, HLC released a set of principles that should guide the creation of value assessment frameworks being used to determine the cost-effectiveness of new healthcare innovations.

Dr. Andrew Baskin, the National Medical Director for Quality and Clinical Policy for Aetna discussed the value of payer-provider partnerships in Accountable Care Organizations and the need to align reimbursements in a way that drives clinical care improvements where they can have the greatest impact. He pointed out the need for regulatory improvements that will give health plans greater flexibility to engage in value-based frameworks.

Dr. Mitch Higashi, Vice President for Health Economics and Outcomes Research at Bristol-Myers Squibb, focused on the need to improve health quality measures by placing a greater emphasis on patient outcomes and giving patients a greater voice in the quality assessment process. He told congressional staffers that Food and Drug Administration regulations need to be modernized to allow expanded information sharing between health insurers and manufacturers.

Helen Macfie, Chief Transformation Officer for MemorialCare Health System, explained how and why her multi-hospital system in southern California transformed from a conventional hospital-based system of care to a paradigm based on integrated care and shared risk. She said the variance in and sheer number of quality measures can make it difficult for health systems to conduct meaningful assessments. She called for a harmonization of metrics across different Accountable Care Organization models.