Allina Health and Health Catalyst Sign $100 Million Agreement Creating Model for System-wide Outcomes Improvement

Groundbreaking agreement combines the two organizations' analytics technology, clinical content and people to turbocharge financial, operational and clinical outcomes improvement via "living laboratory" for healthcare transformation

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Health Catalyst

Jan 06, 2015, 07:00 ET

MINNEAPOLIS and SALT LAKE CITY, Jan. 6, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Allina Health and Health Catalyst have signed a definitive agreement valued at over $100 million to combine technologies, clinical content and front-line personnel in an unprecedented effort to improve the quality and lower the cost of care for Allina's patients and to serve as a model for outcomes improvement nationwide.

The 10-year agreement marks the culmination of a relationship that began in 2008, when Allina Health became Health Catalyst's first customer.

"This agreement with Health Catalyst is unique in the industry and will accelerate outcomes improvement for those served through Allina Health as well as create a roadmap for broader outcomes transformation both here and across the country," said Penny Wheeler, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer of Allina Health. "We have made significant progress with care outcomes improvement over the last six years, and we now believe we can take our efforts to the next level by leveraging the experience and know-how of both organizations and our shared history of innovation and transformation."

Allina Health is a $3.7 billion not-for-profit organization whose more than 90 clinics, 12 hospitals and related healthcare services provide care for nearly 1 million people across Minnesota and western Wisconsin.

The agreement between Allina Health and Health Catalyst includes two major elements:

First, Allina Health will outsource its data warehousing, analytics and performance improvement technology, content, and personnel to Health Catalyst to further accelerate the health system's significant advances in improving care. The Allina employees currently working in these areas will become onsite Health Catalyst team members in phases beginning this month.

Second, Allina will gain access to Health Catalyst's full technology, content and deployment expertise to accelerate outcomes improvement at Allina. The partnership's governing committee will annually identify a prioritized list of improvement projects, each designed to provide measurable care improvement and financial value to Allina, and as success is realized, the partnership will share in the economic benefits of that success.

In the process, Allina Health will become a "living laboratory" and national showcase for front-line outcomes improvement, featuring the latest developments in analytics-enabled improvement from Health Catalyst's portfolio of analytics solutions.

"As payment models continue to transition away from fee-for-service, it becomes increasingly vital for health systems to deeply understand their data in order to pinpoint inefficiencies and then reduce those inefficiencies," said Duncan Gallagher, Chief Financial Officer of Allina Health. "This partnership is designed to accomplish that goal in a measurable, scalable, repeatable manner."

Each year, the committee governing the partnership will agree to a prioritized list of data-driven improvement projects with specific, measurable outcomes goals for each project. Economic rewards will be based on the attainment of these goals. "We expect that this process of using analytics to prioritize projects, in combination with risk-sharing economics, will encourage far more focus and alignment than is found in traditional health system-vendor relationships," said Gallagher.

Dan Burton, Chief Executive Officer of Health Catalyst, said, "Allina Health was one of the first healthcare organizations in the nation to recognize the need for a data-driven culture and infrastructure to enable outcomes improvement. They recognized that transformational quality improvement requires more than great software – you also need content-based best practices to ensure the interventions you select are actionable and relevant; and you need people who know how to make the interventions work."

Burton continued, "This long-term relationship brings all of those elements together, including a stellar team of data architects, process improvement experts and clinicians who we are excited to welcome to the Health Catalyst family. This is a unique opportunity to join forces with one of the nation's most advanced health systems to create a quality improvement process and infrastructure that we believe serves as a prototype to guide other health systems in developing their own data-driven cultures of proactive healthcare transformation."

Health Catalyst has committed to retain all of the former Allina Health staff that will be joining the company starting this month. Like all Health Catalyst team members, they will each receive an ownership stake in the company and a number of other benefits that have earned the company a national top 20 "best places to work" ranking from Modern Healthcare in both 2013 and 2014, and most recently the designation as the #1 mid-sized company for workplace satisfaction in the Salt Lake City area.

About Allina Health

Allina Health is dedicated to the prevention and treatment of illness and enhancing the greater health of individuals, families and communities throughout Minnesota and western Wisconsin. A not-for-profit health care system, Allina Health cares for patients from beginning to end-of-life through its 90+ clinics, 12 hospitals, 15 pharmacies, specialty care centers and specialty medical services that provide home care, senior transitions, hospice care, home oxygen and medical equipment, and emergency medical transportation services. For more information about Allina Health, visit our website at allinahealth.org and join us on Facebook and Twitter.

About Health Catalyst

Health Catalyst is a mission-driven data warehousing and analytics company that helps healthcare organizations of all sizes perform the clinical, financial, and operational reporting and analysis needed for population health and accountable care. Our proven enterprise data warehouse (EDW) and analytics platform helps improve quality, add efficiency and lower costs in support of more than 30 million patients for organizations ranging from the largest US health system to forward-thinking physician practices. Faster and more agile than data warehouses from other industries, the Health Catalyst Late-Binding™ EDW has been heralded by KLAS as a "newer and more effective way to approach EDW." For more information, visit www.healthcatalyst.com, and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

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For more information contact:
Todd Stein
Amendola Communications for Health Catalyst
916.346.4213
[email protected]

SOURCE Health Catalyst