Posted on 28. Feb, 2010 by cyndynayer in Press Releases
Looking Back… and Ahead
Although the ADVANCE for Health Information Executives magazine and website have come to an end, we look forward to taking our next step in reaching an elite group of healthcare executives. First, we would like to extend our deepest gratitude to each person we’ve had the pleasure of interacting with over the years in the HIT market. Whether you were a devoted reader or dedicated contributor, we appreciate you bringing ADVANCE into your life. You helped us build a powerful community of HIT professionals and become the defining voice for healthcare IT executives everywhere. And for that, we thank you!
Our new print and online product, Executive Insight: Strategies and solutions for healthcare leaders, will provide in-depth analysis and strategic planning solutions for healthcare leaders to respond, adapt and thrive in today’s rapidly changing environment. Through our exclusive webinars, interactive online community, multimedia and cutting-edge content, healthcare executives will have the opportunity to engage with one another and implement forward-thinking strategies to lead their facilities to success.
This new quarterly print magazine and robust website are slated for a fall 2010 debut, so stay tuned as
we release more details leading up to the big launch.
Burton-Advance for Health Information Exec
“’Tis a sordid profit that’s accompanied by the destruction of Health.” –Bernardino Ramazzini,
Treatise on the Diseases of Tradesmen, 1705
By Karen O’Hara
Amovement is afoot to get more occupational health programs and modestly sized companies to embrace workplace health and productivity management (HPM) initiatives that have been the domain of larger corporations. When appropriately applied, proponents say HPM significantly expands the net cast by occupational medicine practitioners, who are population-health oriented.
The objective is to extend outreach from individual employees, to groups of workers, to the community at large – somewhat analogous to the circles that radiate from a pebble dropped in a pond. “I would hope an occupational medicine program would offer health and productivity management services to the employers they serve and to their community,” said Doug Benner, M.D., occupational health coordinator for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, where he works closely with Kaiser’s group health plan. “Many people in our field feel you can’t do this just at the worksite. You have to make the whole community healthy. You can’t fix the employees if you have an unhealthy workplace or if the whole community is not health focused.” Pamela Hymel, M.D., M.P.H., president of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM), corroborates Dr. Benner’s view. “A healthy workplace, workforce and community are vital to the long-term financial stability of the country,” she said. “The U.S. has far underestimated the impact of poor health in the workplace and on the economy. As we look at our gross domestic product and how much we spend on health care, it’s important for us to determine how we can provide greater efficiency and not have to treat so many chronic and end-stage diseases. “We can’t just look at insurance coverage. We need to look at how we can increase the baseline health of the population. . . .
Burton Visions continues here. . .
Wayne Burton and Cyndy Nayer, from the Center for Health Value Innovation, speak with David Harlow about value-based health designs for health improvement and cost savings
I recently spoke with Wayne Burton, MD and Cyndy Nayer. Cyndy is co-founder and President of the Center for Health Value Innovation; Wayne is a member of the Board of Strategic Advisors, and former longtime Corporate Medical Director of JP Morgan Chase. The Center focuses on sharing evidence of improved health and economic outcomes through value-based designs. In the current environment, this sort of private-sector focus on value-based health improvement and cost savings is critical.
Given the recent collapse of health reform inside the Beltway, now is the time for organizations such as the Center to prove themselves and their approaches, by demonstrating that they are able to “bend the cost curve” while improving health indicators, and ensure that efforts to do so yield a significant ROI. Wayne and Cyndy shared with me a number of ways in which programs run by large employers in the public and private sectors are a step ahead of the health care systems in place for other folks. Here’s one excerpt from our conversation:
No one succeeds in a value based design without two things. One, an incredible focus on prevention and wellness, an expectation that people will take care of their health. And the second is consistent and ongoing communication. We have several instances where companies thought if they announced a value based design during benefits enrollment people would dive on to it. And within eighteen months they had left the value based design space because it’s a complicated message and it takes a while for people to understand what exactly we want them to do. Value based design is not just about moving copays to zero for a drug. It really is about teaching people what part of the highway do we want them to travel on. How do we help them get to their destination, healthier, higher performing, more productive and that’s what the levers are about. Think of them as cones on the highway, and as we fix the highway or encounter new bumps we move the cones around to get the cars to move a different direction – that’s exactly what a lever does.
For more on the topic, check out the many articles posted on the Center’s website.
Burton-Nayer Blog w/Harlow
David Harlow continues the value-based design conversation with Wayne Burton, MD and Cyndy Nayer of the Center for Health Value Innovation
Today we bring you Part II of my conversation with Wayne Burton and Cyndy Nayer of the Center for Health Innovation, where we get into some specific examples of successful programs. The Center represents over 40 million lives, and brings together employers and providers to focus on a limited number of levers targeted at health and wellness – rather than health care. The ROI of wellness efforts in the workplace is pegged at nearly 300% in a recent Health Affairs article by Karen Baicker et al. and accompanying Health Affairs blog post by Jaan Sidorov – one of my fellow “Health Wonks.” Clearly this is an area that demands our attention.
Burton-Nayer Blog Part II w/Harlow
Posted on 27. Oct, 2009 by cyndynayer in Cyndy's Spot on Health Value, News, Press Releases
In a whirlwind day of meetings with legislators, policy advisors and advocacy groups in Lansing, Cyndy Nayer ( CEO, Center for Health Value Innovation) met Mark Fendrick, MD (Univ of Michigan Center for Value-Based Insurance Design, and strategic advisor to the Center for Health Value Innovation) at the meeting of the State of Michigan House of Representatives’ Committee on Public Employee Health Care Reform. This committee was created by House Speaker Andy Dillon (D-Redford Township) in August 2009 to analyze his proposal to overhaul public employee health care in Michigan, H.B. 5345.
Read the PR release jointly issued by the Center and Center for VBID here. Release re MI Testimony October 22
Read Cyndy’s testimony here C Nayer Testimony before Michigan House Committee
Read Mark’s testimony here Fendrick Testimony to Michigan 10.22
Posted on 06. Oct, 2009 by cyndynayer in News, Press Releases
St. Louis, MO – October 05, 2009 – The Center for Health Value Innovation (www.vbhealth.org), the nation’s premier information exchange for value-based design, today announced an alignment with the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM; www.acoem.org) and the Integrated Benefits Institute (IBI; www.ibiweb.org), creating a powerful triumvirate to better articulate the value of health and productivity management (HPM). Working together, these leading organizations will create standardized data and result metrics for value-based HPM and launch HPM Clinics designed to educate and inform insurance brokers and industry consultants on the opportunities to enhance employer competitiveness and health in the community, and concurrently bend cost trends.
“Now more than ever, we need to amplify the message that poor health adversely impacts the physical and financial health of a community, and identify options for improvement,” says Cyndy Nayer, president and CEO of the Center. “We anticipate that program participants will begin utilizing key value-based strategies for designing healthcare programs, including HPM modeling and finely honed measurement tools. As a result, compromised communities will begin to see improved health and a reduction in health cost trends.”
These organizational relationships further position the Center as a proving ground for innovative thinking, providing all stakeholders in the health care continuum a platform for fertilizing and implementing fresh ideas that advance individual health and contain costs.
Forbes.com Center-IBI-ACOEM news release FINAL
Posted on 16. Sep, 2009 by admin in Press Releases
St. Louis, MO – September 16, 2009 – The Center for Health Value Innovation, the nation’s premier information exchange for value-based design, announces the addition of six new members to its Board of Advisors and the appointment of Paul Grundy, M.D., director, Healthcare Transformation for IBM, and president of the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative, to its Board of Directors.
“This dynamic group of people will be a welcome injection of fresh thinking into our already vibrant mix of healthcare innovators at the Center,” says Cyndy Nayer, president and CEO of the Center. “As healthcare reform gets under way and there is increased focus upon creating financial value for all stakeholders in the healthcare system, the Center will continue to promote its game-changing initiatives.”
The Center elected six new members to its Board of Advisors:
• Cindy Johnson, Vice President of Human Resources, Group Health Cooperative
• Frank Johnson, Executive Director of Benefits, State of Maine
• Gregg Kamas, Director of Health Risk Management, IMA Financial Group, Inc.
• Jeff Kluever, Risk Manager, Journal Communications and Co-Founder of the SE Wisconsin Business Healthcare Group
• Mike Kushner, Risk Management Director, Polk County, Florida
• Bruce Sherman, MD, Consulting Medical Director, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company
Mike Taylor, M.D., Center chairman and medical director for Health Promotion at Caterpillar, Inc., adds, “As we approach a new era in our country’s healthcare system, the addition of these stellar thought-leaders to the Center’s team will enhance our efforts to serve communities and stakeholder organizations, improve individual health, and lower consumption of health resources and cost trends through the exchange of value-based design ideas and strategies.”
Posted on 09. Sep, 2009 by admin in Events, News, Press Releases
Leveraging Health book launch: September 30, 2009, 8 a.m., National Press Club, Washington, D.C.; Book signing, 5:30 p.m, Consumer Health Care Congress, Alexandria, Va.
ST. LOUIS, Mo. – September 09, 2009 –The Center for Health Value Innovation (www.vbhealth.org), the nation’s leading information exchange for value-based design, announces the publication of its first book, Leveraging Health. Authored by three of the recognized experts in value-based design — Cyndy Nayer, president and CEO of the Center, Jack Mahoney, M.D., chief medical officer of the Center, and Jan Berger, M.D., strategic advisor — the book uses real-world case studies from public and private organizations to illustrate 15 “levers” of value-based design.
Raymond Zastrow, M.D., vice president of the Center, will chair the book launch event, September 30, 2009, 8 a.m., at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C. The authors will attend an evening book signing event, 5:30 p.m. at the World Congress, Consumer Health Care Congress, Alexandria, Va. Use coupon code MCM464 to receive a 50 percent discount on registration fees.
“In the past 25 years, cost compression has done little to slow the growth of chronic disease and related costs,” says Dr. Mahoney. “We used our collective expertise and real-world business experiences to showcase the innovations that change the dynamics of poorly managed health. Readers can access insights on where to start, which levers to use, and how to measure outcomes that matter to the C-suite.”
Leveraging Health uses “suites” of levers, a metaphor for plan designs and incentives, to show benefits decision makers how to make informed decisions on benefits and services for better corporate performance.
“The Center’s first book will be a valuable tool for senior level executives at public and private organizations,” says Nayer. “Organizations of all sizes and sectors are faced with the economics of health cost and impact. Leveraging Health is the definitive reference work that dissects plan design and incentives for prevention, wellness, chronic care and delivery services. We expect that this book will expand our scope of influence far beyond the 40 million covered lives that the Center represents.”
“These are exciting times in the world of value-based design,” says Berger. “The Center and value-based design are becoming part of the national dialogue on health policy in this country. The levers of value-based design are thoughtfully articulated and positioned for those seeking strategic and practical solutions.”
