In this episode of the Move to Value Podcast, we have a conversation with Robert Mechanic, MBA, Executive Director of the Accountable Care Institute, who shares ways to understand a patient population.
Transcript:
What is the Institute for Accountable Care and what is its primary mission?
So, Thomas, we are a fairly new organization. We're an independent not-for-profit. We were formed several years ago, and our primary mission is building on the available research and contributing to the available research on the impact of Accountable Care. Both to inform public policy and sort of future development of Accountable Care programs. And also, to support organizations that are committed to value-based care. So, I’d say, we combine, we’re a little bit unique. We combine elements of a think-tank, a data analytics shop, and a consulting firm. We like solving complicated problems, preferably using empirics, data analysis. Half of our staff are programmers, data scientists, and statisticians. And we like to work on problems that have practical implications for organizations who are trying to improve care or for national policy. And I guess, the last thing I’d say, our special sauce is we have a data use agreement with the Center for Medicare and Medicare Services, where we have access to 100% of the Medicare programs claims data. And obviously that allows us to ask all kinds of interesting questions and learn all kinds of interesting things.
How does your work document and promote the best practices for Accountable Care?
So, I’d frame the question, Thomas, a little bit differently. As you know, organizations can put best practices in place, but you know, whether they’re successful, it’s all about execution. And when we get into Accountable Care, everybody’s program, for example your care management program, is going to be different. So, what we can do, is we can help a particular organization, or a group of organizations, evaluate whether a particular program is achieving its performance goals. So, does your care management program improve quality? Does it reduce spending? And because we have all this data, we can do this sort of scientifically with a comparison group that we match to your patients, in your geography, and we can look at, you know, how their spending changes compared to the spending of the group that you enroll in your programs.
Another area that we do too, in this kind of work, is we help organizations develop and implement best practices through learning collaboratives that we organize and we facilitate. So, two examples of that would be we work with a group of a dozen ACOs building home-based care programs, and we bring in outside experts, but a lot of the work is also peer-to-peer. ACOs helping each other. They’re working on the same problems. And we’re currently doing a collaborative working on addressing the social determinants of health and how do you build a strategy, and how do you build the right infrastructure to have an impact.
How does the Institute for Accountable Care partner with Accountable Care Organizations?
Yeah, I mean, I think there are a couple of other areas. One is, you know, because of the data, we can help people understand their own performance compared to peers. So, an ACO, or a group like an ACO, has all their own data, of all the utilization of their patients, but they don’t really see everything else that’s happening around them. So, what we can do, is we can, you know, look at other providers in their market, or we can look at other providers nationally, that are trying to do the same thing that they are, and we can say, gee, you know, are you doing better or worse than them? Can we identify why? Are there certain areas, you know, you are doing great in managing hospital care,...
