The NC MSSP & Next Gen Council held its second quarter meeting of 2017 on Thursday, May 25, at the North Carolina Medical Society (NCMS) Center for Leadership in Medicine in Raleigh with representatives from 13 North Carolina ACOs taking part. Participation on the Council is reserved for those ACOs involved with the federal Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) or those that are Next Generation ACOs. The Council, which is part of the NCMS-spearheaded Toward Accountable Care (TAC) Consortium and Initiative, offers Council members a venue to share best practices as well as the challenges involved with the MSSP and Next Gen program.
Participants at last week’s meeting included: Carolina Medical Home Network ACO, CaroMont Health, three CHESS ACOs, Coastal Carolina Quality Care, Coastal Plains Network, Duke Connected Care, Mission Health Partners, Physicians Healthcare CollaborativePhysicians Healthcare Collaborative, Tar River Health Alliance, Triad HealthCare Network, UNC Senior Alliance, and WakeMed Key Community Care.
Melanie Phelps, JD, senior vice president of Health Systems Innovation for the NCMS, welcomed members and introduced Peter Freeman, MPH, Executive Director of Carolina Medical Home Network (CHMN), the program’s featured ACO. Freeman outlined the CHMN’s underlying objective: to serve as a center of excellence and “pilot program” for care delivery innovations for the 37 Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) across the state. Kathleen Evans, the ACO’s Program Manager explained how their integration of provider feedback and direction in deploying their data analytics platform and dashboard is helping them to accomplish this goal.
During the open forum, members shared their accomplishments and ideas on how they are tackling what they identify as the biggest challenges to realizing the Triple Aim (improved patient experience, improved population health, and reduced costs). A recurrent topic was the challenge of identifying and addressing social determinants of health. Rob Fields, MD, the Medical Director at Mission Health Partners, noted that sharing information across non-affiliated organizations and breaking down information “silos” remains a challenge. Steve Neorr, Executive Director of Triad HealthCare Network, more specifically noted that the long-term success of any ACO is predicated on understanding and addressing the broad social determinants driving health care utilization.
Gary Salamido, vice president of government affairs for the North Carolina Chamber closed the event with a discussion of the Chamber’s health reform initiative: Transforming Health Care: A Roadmap to Value.
The next Council meeting is scheduled for Nov. 16, 2017 in Raleigh. For more information, please contact Dana Lucas at [email protected] or 919-833-3836.
