It’s shaping up to be a busy fall season here at the Center! Along with following the ongoing national debate on health care reform, we continue to move forward with demonstrating and disseminating the value of the VBID approach.

The most ambitious effort in that direction is our book, Leveraging Health, of which I am very proud. I’d like to publicly thank my co-authors, Dr. Jack Mahoney and Dr. Jan Berger, for the time and effort to produce the first book from the Center. Please sign up now to get your copies, and reserve your seat for the book launch at the National Press Club in Washington Sept. 30!

We will launch our first monograph, the Public Entities: VBD in Cities/Counties/States, with 5 organizational approaches to value-based designs that are very different yet produce better health for their communities.  Watch for the announcement on our front page.

The launch of both the book and the monograph is being timed to coincide with the Consumer Health Care Congress in Alexandria, Va. — I predict some fascinating and very timely discussions and information-sharing. World Congress, our industry ally and the producer of the Consumer Health Care Congress, is hosting a book signing for us, and we want to thank them publicly.

IMPORTANT TRAINING: The Center, the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM), and the Integrated Benefits Institute (IBI) are co-sponsoring an introductory Health and Productivity Clinic on Sep 16 12 noon ET. It’s directed to Brokers and Consultants to formally introduce the philosophy, process and some tools for Value-Based Designs. To register, go to acoem.org.

Dr. Jack Mahoney and I have also been asked to speak at the Next Generation HealthCare Delivery conference Oct. 26, also in Washington (it makes sense, since that’s where a lot of the action on health care reform is taking place!). Jack, Jan, and I will have a book signing there, as well. We want to thank the Institute for International Research (IIR), which produces the Next Gen conference, for including us in their plans.

Finally, I want to highlight some upcoming and continuing efforts that you’ll want to keep an eye on.  It’s always important to me to acknowledge the immense amount of support that our members, allies and funders provide to us. Here are a few such thank-you’s with the hope to continue the work into 2010:

• HPM Clinic/webinar: Value-based designs for broker-consultant communities.  We’ve worked hard with ACOEM and IBI– there’s an enormous amount of work that goes into aligning 3 organizations and launching a new educational forum. Doris Konicki, Ron Loeppke, Pam Hymel, Bill Molmen, and Tom Parry–thanks for welcoming us to your team.
• Battle Creek Michigan VBD efforts: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation–These folks believed in our community efforts from the beginning.  Through their grant, we will be able to create a roadmap for community collaboration based on value that will be produced in early Spring 2010.  But the community work itself happened due to the diligence and commitment of companies and people who saw a different answer to mending healthcare and producing health.  All of the folks who have contributed their time, expertise, and funding in the Michigan arena, including Integrated Health Partners (Ruth, Mary Ellen–what visionaries!), Kellogg, Battle Creek Health System, City of Battle Creek, Kellogg Foundation, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Priority Health, and Denso, plus many of the companies on our Board of Advisors.  This has been an amazing project with multiple stakeholders that has taught us all what “reform” could really be:  better health for our citizens and our communities when the patient centered primary care is linked to value-based designs. Let’s also publicly thank the folks at Merck, Johnson and Johnson, Novartis, Novo-Nordisk, Pfizer and sanofi-aventis for the generous commitment to outcomes assistance and communication expertise.
• Camden County NJ–Jim Rhodes and Greg Smith have led a team of curious, committed folks to begin a process of value-based designs for their community.  As we begin the modeling, we acknowledge the efforts of Jim/Camden County Government, Greg/Dept of Social Services, and Campbell’s, Cooper Hospital, AmeriHealth, Aetna, Horizon BCBSNJ, Medco, Conner Strong, and our early support from Merck, Johnson and Johnson, Novartis and sanofi-aventis.  Partners in Care (on our Board of Directors) has been stellar as a guide in patient-centered care for this endeavor.
• First Innovators’ Summit. In June, we hosted our first innovator’s summit in June due to the generosity of the folks at Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America, who provided an educational grant to the Center  As a result, we’ll be publishing a decision matrix later this fall, hosting a webinar, and creating speaker slides for Value-Based Design for our Board. Watch for these posts, and many thanks to the folks at Takeda.
• Wisconsin Innovators Summit. Thank you to Merck and Co., Inc., and to Humana for the educational grant and support that will fund our next summit, an invitation-only event to showcase best-practices across the state, create a learning collaborative and monograph and highlight the variety and success of VBD.
• To our Board of Directors, our Executive Board and Laura Carabello and the folks at CPR Marketing–we’ve been running fast and furiously to share our learnings, educate and define the pathways of VBD, and provide ongoing stability to our Board.
• A Special Thank You to Mike Taylor, Medical Officer for Health Promotion at Caterpillar, and our Chair.  What a yeoman’s task you have taken on, willingly and bravely, and, as the first member of our Board, I’m profoundly grateful.

Thank you, all of you, for all you do!   And to you, our readers: To Your Health!!