Improving Member Health Leads to Reduction in Costs: Achieving the Triple Aim
(New York, NY, April 22, 2015) Cammack Health shows industry-leading results in a white paper, Achieving the Triple Aim: How One Health Care Group Reduced Costs and Improved Member Health, released today.
Drawing from a four-year long partnership between Southcoast® Health and Cammack Health, the paper demonstrates that improving member health leads to steep, sustained reduction in costs, with an ROI for the health management programs of 4.2-to-1 in the most recent year.
Cammack Health worked with Southcoast® Health to establish a new governance structure that emphasizes physician leadership and set goals such as modifying high-risk behaviors, controlling chronic conditions, managing acute conditions, and educating people to make healthy choices. They made several innovations, including launching the personal health management (PHM) service and recruiting local nurses as personal health nurses (PHNs).
Key figures from the study include a decline in hospital admissions of 40%, with the number of emergency room visits more than cut in half. Together with this, Southcoast® Health’s cost of care trend outperforms national projections. The system has saved more than $17M compared to trend since partnering with Cammack Health.
Additionally, overall health of members has improved, with positive changes in regard to weight loss, smoking cessation, glucose management, blood pressure, compliance with routine screenings and more. Members also rated their service highly at very good or good 80 to 90 percent of the time, concluding Cammack’s Health’s Triple Aim of improved health, better patient experience, and lower costs.
“To survive in today’s healthcare environment, hospitals know they must transition to a value- based/accountable care model, but they’re unsure of exactly how to accomplish it,” states Erin O’Connor of Cammack Health, emphasizing the firm’s operational experience, data-driven intelligence, and grasp of root causes. “We had made several changes to plans, but we had continued to have double-digit cost increases every year,” said David DeJesus, Senior Vice President, Human Resources at Southcoast® Health, continuing: “In the first four years of (Cammack Health’s) plan, we had zero increase in our budget related to health care.”
Meanwhile, Beth Barker, Director of Compensation and Benefits at Southcoast® Health says: “The best piece for me is knowing that our efforts are being rewarded by improvements in the health of our members and their families. The data shows that our members truly are healthier.”
About Cammack Health
Cammack Health provides employee benefits and healthcare consulting services to hospital and corporate clients. Cammack Health has a broad and deep experience in building and implementing successful strategies for health systems, health plans, employers, and others who are "at risk" for the cost of health care, serving clients nationwide with a concentration along the East Coast. Core strengths include the partnerships we maintain with clients and a knowledgeable and practical management team with a 98% client retention rate.
The company is dedicated to providing an extraordinary level of customer service through best-in-class programs, technology solutions, and innovative problem solving to create value for our clients and their organizations. Clients look to Cammack Health for expert plan and program design, seamless implementation, and ongoing support and service.
Cammack Health mobilizes organizations to establish, deploy, and continuously improve the successful community/population healthcare model, and is known for turning data to insight and insight to action.
About Southcoast Health
Southcoast® Health is a community-based health delivery system with multiple access points, offering an integrated continuum of health services throughout Southeastern Massachusetts and East Bay, Rhode Island.
It includes the three hospitals that make up Southcoast® Hospitals Group — Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River, St. Luke's Hospital in New Bedford and Tobey Hospital in Wareham.
Southcoast® provides advanced clinical services, such as open heart surgery, angioplasty and heart rhythm services, comprehensive cancer care, neurosurgery, weight loss surgery,orthopedic surgery, advanced imaging services and is the only provider of maternity services in the region.
Southcoast® is a not-for-profit charitable organization that depends on the support of the community to provide services.