OSF HealthCare joins task force to transform health care
- Details
- Published on Thursday, 29 January 2015 14:57
- Written by Paul Gordon
OSF HealthCare has joined the Health Care Transformation Task Force, a group of health systems, health insurers, purchasers, employers and patients who will work together to transform national health care over the next five years.
For OSF it is a continuing commitment “to bring value to our patients and this industry. OSF HealthCare has been a national leader in that arena for the past several years,” OSF said in a news release.
OSF HealthCare was chosen to be one of 32 Pioneer Accountable Care Organizations in 2012, helping to pilot a new model of care that emphasizes higher quality and lower costs and penalizes systems that do not deliver both.
“We accepted that risk because we understood the health care industry must find ways to provide better value and better patient outcomes. Though our Pioneer ACO comprises patients on Medicare, our approach and commitment is to improve care for all of our patients. Just 19 of the 32 Pioneer ACOs remain, and the OSF HealthCare quality scores for 2013, the most recent year for which data is available, put us in the top five among that group,” the company said.
Kevin Schoeplein, OSF HealthCare CEO, said participation in health care innovation projects such as these has not resulted in “ever losing sight of our Mission to serve our patients with the greatest care and love. Our participation in the Health Care Transformation Task Force is recognition that we are truly leaders in the national efforts to continuously improve our health care system in this country. What makes that work worthwhile is when we see the results in better care for our patients.”
The mission of the Health Care Transformation Task Force is to bring together patients, payers, providers and purchasers to align private and public sector efforts to clear the way for a sweeping transformation of the U.S. health care system.
“We seek to provide a critical mass of business, operational and policy expertise from the private sector that, when combined with the efforts of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and other public and private sector stakeholders, can accelerate the pace of delivery system transformation,” according to the Task Force mission statement.
The organization said “there is a vital need for the industry to work cooperatively to accelerate health care transformation and position it for success. We need to overcome doubts about the certainty and pace of the transition and improve our knowledge about how to best produce the Triple Aim of better health, better care and lower costs. We need to make individuals and families aware of and involve them in health system redesign. If we want providers and payers to commit to this transformation, we must offer certainty that the nation will stay the course. Finally, we must ensure that the transition does not decrease competition across the industry.”
The Task Force aims to have 75 percent of the industry under value-based contracts to deliver the Triple Aim by 2020. To date, there are 28 organizations – health care delivery companies such as OSF Healthcare, insurance payers and purchasers and family groups involved in the Task Force.
For more information on the Health Care Transformation Task Force, visit www.hcttf.org.
