Posted on 30. Jun, 2009 by admin in Press Releases
Center for Health Value Innovation Members Honored as 2009 Best Employers for Health Lifestyles By National Business Group on Health
ST. LOUIS, Mo. – June 30, 2009 – The Center for Health Value Innovation, (www.vbhealth.org), the nation’s premier organization dedicated to establishing value and producing evidence for sustainable health and financial improvement, announced today that 11 of its member organizations received awards for the 2009 Best Employers for Healthy Lifestyles from the National Business Group On Health (NBGH; http://www.businessgrouphealth.org/).
NBGH is the nation’s only non-profit, membership organization of large employers devoted exclusively to finding innovative and forward-thinking solutions to their most important healthcare and related benefits issues, and its awards program acknowledges those organizations for their exceptional commitment to a healthy workplace and for helping their employees and families make better choices about their own health and well-being.
Recognizing The Center members which earned this distinction, Cyndy Nayer, president and CEO of The Center says, “Our member companies continue to be acknowledged for their cultures of health and emphasis on prevention and wellness, testimony to the success of value-based benefit design,” says Cyndy Nayer, president and CEO of the Center. “They are pioneers and innovators, demonstrating the power of consumer engagement to drive improved health, better outcomes and lower cost trends.”
These Center members earned the following NBGH 2009 Best Employers for Healthy Lifestyles Winners awards:
PLATINUM: Recognizing established “Healthy Weight, Healthy Lifestyles” programs with measurable success and documented outcomes.
FPL Group
Hannaford Supermarkets
IBM
Pitney Bowes Inc.
Quest Diagnostics
(Campbell Soup Company is part of this award category. While not a member of the Board of the Center, it is working with the Center and other companies in the Camden Counties Healthy Employees Consortium for an innovative model of value-based design).
GOLD: For creating cultural and environmental changes that support employees who are committed to long-term behavior changes.
Chrysler Group LLC
Humana
Mayo Clinic
WellPoint, Inc.
SILVER: For employers who have launched programs or services to promote living a healthier lifestyle.
sanofi-aventis U.S.
About The Center for Health Value Innovation
Information Exchange for Value-Based Design
Launched in 2007, The Center for Health Value Innovation is a multi-stakeholder not-for-profit (501c3) alliance focused on employers that drives the financial value of health dollars. www.vbhealth.org.
Posted on 27. Jun, 2009 by admin in News, People, Press Releases
Business Week featured Paul Grundy, CHVI board member and director of health-care transformation at IBM, in a piece about the rising prominence of the idea of a “medical home,” which would put general practitioners in charge of coordinating all care for their patients.
This vision has a name: the “patient-centered medical home.” The “home” is the office of a primary-care doctor where patients would go for most of their medical needs. The general practitioner would oversee everything from flu shots to chronic disease management to weight loss, and coordinate care with nurses, pharmacists, and specialists. A 2004 study estimated that if every patient had such a home, the resulting efficiencies might reduce U.S. health-care costs by 5.6%, a savings of $67 billion a year.
Instead, most patients today get a scant seven minutes with a general practitioner, who has time to do little more than ask cursory questions and focus on the problem at hand. The patient rushes to specialists for chronic conditions that could be managed by a regular doctor. (Today, these different physicians rarely coordinate.) Last-minute appointments are almost unheard of—one reason patients with minor complaints flock to already crowded hospital emergency rooms.
This medical home may sound like the “gatekeeper” model of the 1990s, a managed-care creation that was all about holding down costs. But advocates say the new concept is designed to help patients, not insurers. It’s more like doctoring 1950s-style, when a Marcus Welby figure handled all the family’s medical needs. This time it’s juiced up with digital technology.
It also represents a politically painless way to streamline a disorganized and wasteful system that chews up a crippling 18% of the U.S. gross domestic product. That burden is felt particularly by private industry, which covers 60% of the nation’s insured. Since most businesses try to ferret out waste and disorganization in their own operations, the medical home is a concept they can embrace in good conscience.
Grundy’s role in the debate is as a representative of a leading employer, advocating both for the medical-home model and for employers as innovators. Read the full article here.
Posted on 09. Jun, 2009 by admin in Library
The Health Care Blog has a great interview with Dr. Jerry Reeves, a CHVI board member and strong advocate for data-driven health care. He draws on great examples from his work with the H.E.R.E.I.U. Welfare Fund and Health Innovations Inc. to show how data-driven care is not just about numbers, but about talking with people and finding out why things are the way they are. He also calls for merging various sources of aggregate health care data to form a massive database allowing researchers to zero in on specific costs and trends. Read the whole interview here.
Posted on 09. Jun, 2009 by cyndynayer in Library
We’re pleased to highlight this new research demonstrating the positive results of value-based benefit design. Dr. Robert Scully, a board member of the Center for Health Value Innovation, is one of the people at the forefront of this research. Here’s the press release:
MedImpact Study Highlights Effects of Value-Based Benefit Design on Adherence to Diabetes Medications
New Research Showing VBBD Implementation Improves Adherence Presented at ISPOR International Conference
San Diego, Calif., June 2, 2009—MedImpact researchers and Health Alliance Medical Plans, a MedImpact client, presented findings from an important new study that evaluates the impact of value-based benefit design (VBBD) on adherence to diabetes medications. Study results show that implementation of a VBBD program that reduced copayment by almost fifty percent for diabetic medications resulted in significantly improved medication adherence.
VBBD, also known as value-based insurance design, is a new pharmacy benefit design that defines drug copay on clinical value rather than drug acquisition cost. The rationale behind VBBD is that many important treatments for chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and asthma, are often underused due to cost, leading to undesirable patient outcomes such as an increase in complications and preventable hospitalizations. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the impact of a VBBD on adherence to diabetes medications among a pilot group of Carle Clinic enrollees.
The program reduced copayment for diabetic medications by 47.6 percent and improved the odds of adherence by 73.3 percent. The number of non-adherent patients was reduced by 33.4 percent.
“This study adds to a growing body of evidence that shows adherence to treatment is higher when there are lower copays,” said Dr. Robert Scully, senior medical director for Health Alliance Medical Plans. “Companies such as Pitney Bowes have reported that improved adherence after introduction of a VBBD for diabetic medications was followed by lower overall claim costs in their diabetic population. Our goal is to prove this in an insured population, and the pilot data we are reporting now is very encouraging.”
The MedImpact study—“The Impact of Formulary Value-Based Insurance Design on Adherence to Diabetes Medications: A Propensity Score Matched Difference in Difference Evaluation”—was presented at the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) 14th Annual International Meeting on Tuesday, May 19.
“ISPOR is an innovative, vital organization that supports the science of health economics and the effects of health care interventions on patient well-being,” said Dr. Louis Brunetti, senior vice president and chief medical officer for MedImpact. “The research presented during the annual meeting is translated into valuable information for health care decision-makers and ultimately helps to better allocate scarce health care resources.”
ISPOR represents researchers and practitioners, including pharmacists, physicians, and economists. The research findings benefit all members of the health care continuum, including hospitals, patients and managed care and pharmacy benefit design organization’s personnel, who use the information to make better informed health care decisions.
Posted on 01. Jun, 2009 by admin in Press Releases
ST. LOUIS, Mo. – June 1, 2009 – Citing an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle (5/28) where Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) wrote, “One of the most promising new concepts in health care delivery is Value Based Insurance Design (VBID), which offers the potential to simultaneously improve health care quality while reducing costs,” industry leaders Cyndy Nayer, president and CEO of the Center for Health Value Innovation (www.vbhealth.org), and Mark Fendrick, M.D., co-director of the Michigan Center for VBID (http://www.sph.umich.edu/vbidcenter/), affirm the positive direction of VBID.
“We applaud Senator Hutchison’s foresight and encouragement to realize the true promise of VBID: improved health care outcomes that will slow health cost inflation,” says Nayer, speaking for the Center, the nation’s premier organization dedicated to establishing value and producing evidence for sustainable health and financial improvement. “By re-balancing expenses and linking appropriate care with better outcomes, VBID advances both health and economic security for businesses and individuals. It is a fundamental step forward to achieving financial well-being in our communities and across the nation.”
Nayer and Dr. Fendrick concur with Senator Hutchison’s assessment of rising healthcare costs as a threat to the competitiveness of businesses across the country and an added burden for families who are struggling to make ends meet.
Dr. Fendrick asserts, “Senator Hutchison’s characterization of VBID as simple yet transformative idea is direct and to the point: cost barriers should be removed for ‘high-value’ care and treatments. This should resonate with government and private sector leaders. Her astute observation embodies the tenets of VBID: that a medicine or procedure is deemed high-value when evidence shows that we can maximize the health benefits to patients compared to dollars spent.”
About The Center for Health Value Innovation:
Information exchange for value-based design
Launched in 2007, The Center for Health Value Innovation is a multi-stakeholder not-for-profit (501c3) alliance focused on employers that drives the financial value of health dollars. www.vbhealth.org <http://www.vbhealth.org> .
About University of Michigan Center for Value-Based Insurance Design
The Center for VBID develops, evaluates, and promotes value-based insurance initiatives to ensure efficient expenditure of health care dollars and maximize benefits of care.
(http://www.sph.umich.edu/vbidcenter/)
