Industry Roundtable: Experts Agree that Debate Over Healthcare Policy Will Not Slow Transition to Value-Based Care

NEW YORK, Jan. 10, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Chasm Partners, a leading executive search firm in the healthcare technology and services space, recently convened a roundtable discussion to assess the present state and uncertain future of value-based care – and found the outlook for 2018 and beyond to be quite optimistic.

The roundtable, which was hosted as part of the firm's quarterly newsletter, ChasmPOV, featured experts from across the healthcare ecosystem who are helping to chart the path forward for their organizations:

• Tracy L. Bahl, Executive Vice President, Health Plans at CVS Health, who is instrumental in working with the company's health plan clients to explore opportunities to integrate value-based care models.
• Patrick Conway, President and CEO, Blue Cross NC, and former Head of Innovation at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid, where he advanced bundled payment models.
• Michael Sherman, Chief Medical Officer & Senior Vice President, Health Services, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, who oversaw the first value-based care deal between Harvard Pilgrim and Amgen, which focused on drug performance.
• Scott Weingarten, Senior Vice President, Chief Clinical Transformation Officer, Cedars-Sinai, who has been a leading innovator in the value-based care space.

"As we enter into the new year, we're seeing growing consensus that value-based care is inevitable, fueled by real-world advancements and a strong consumer demand that is forcing this evolution to become a reality," said Matt Dumas, Managing Partner at Chasm Partners. "In this roundtable and in our conversations with executives across the payer, provider and PBM ecosystem, it's clear that healthcare organizations are increasingly more committed to breaking down long-established silos—and that is incredibly exciting for our industry and the patients it serves."

Key takeaways and highlights from the roundtable discussion include:

• Value-based care strategies must be designed and implemented with a focus on the consumer and a firm commitment to enhancing the patient experience.
  "All of our work to improve quality and outcomes and reduce costs should be with an eye toward giving consumers greater value and an overall better experience," Conway said. "Our healthcare system in the U.S. is fragmented, which only confuses people. The partnerships that providers and health plans have begun need to lead to tighter integration and more sharing of data to create a better-coordinated experience for consumers."
• The shift to value-based care is fueling new uses for data and has the potential to reinvigorate the electronic health records that many feared had gone stale.
  "I believe that natural language processing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence have the potential to significantly improve the interpretation, understanding, and usefulness of information documented in the electronic health records and other information sources," said Weingarten. "I believe that these advances will enable provider organizations to unlock the promise of EHRs and other technologies and achieve a greater clinical and financial return on their technology investments."
• In this new value-driven world, digital health solutions for virtual care can the help the industry to ease the transition if adopted soon and used wisely.
  "Through enhanced utilization of emerging technologies such as telemonitoring, moving care to the home – including for conditions previously requiring hospitalization – providing an enhanced primary care experience, many through a combination of in-person and virtual care," said Sherman. "In many cases, these companies are bypassing the health plan and being offered directly to large employers. Given that these new approaches appear to be gaining real traction, those who choose to ignore these new entrants do so at their own peril."
• Value-based programs will succeed based on the results they deliver – and drug manufacturers are finally listening.
  "It is the consumer who will determine our fates more than any law or regulation. How effective we are at simplifying this ridiculously fragmented and complex space for the consumer and driving tangible value in their lives will determine how successful any of us are," said Bahl. "If there is a mistake to be made, it's in implementing a 'value-based program' for the sake of having a value based program. You see this a lot in 'value-based' programs with drug manufacturers—many look interesting but have failed to produce tangible results. We've been able to partner with a few manufacturers in innovative ways that we believe will drive tangible results for our customers."

About Chasm Partners

Chasm Partners is a retained search firm focused on placing top talent in high-growth venture backed companies. We specialize in helping organizations scale in highly disruptive sectors facing transformation including Healthcare Technology & Services, Big Data & Analytics and Enterprise Software. In addition to retained search, Chasm invests in many of its clients and provides additional services to help them scale and grow including recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) and organizational development. For more information, visit www.chasmpartners.com.

Media Contact: Lisa Chernikoff, Amendola Communications for Chasm Partners, 734-678-5513, [email protected]

SOURCE Chasm Partners

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