The Ascension St. Vincent’s Physician Alliance is an effort among physicians who practice in Ascension St. Vincent’s to become clinically integrated. Ascension St. Vincent's consists of five acute care hospitals (Ascension St. Vincent's Birmingham, Ascension St. Vincent's Blount, Ascension St. Vincent's Chilton, Ascension St. Vincent's East, Ascension St. Vincent's St. Clair) Ascension St. Vincent's One Nineteen Health and Wellness, Ascension St. Vincent's Trussville, and 100+ outpatient sites, and a home healthcare company. Comprised of over 900 physicians representing over 50 specialties and subspecialties, the Physician Alliance strives to:
• Improve the health and wellbeing of our community
• Provide person-centered care
• Control costs to create health care value
• Enhance caregiver engagement and satisfaction
Healthcare costs have been increasing exponentially over the past three decades, currently accounting for almost 18% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. This has placed a considerable cost burden on employers and workers, strained state and federal budgets, and created an intense focus on health spending and affordability. Much of health reform is geared toward slowing these escalating cost trends. Moreover, there is wide agreement among leaders of public health that the financial incentives for providing care must be more appropriately aligned.
Clinical Integration
Physician engagement strategies using Clinical Integration (CI) have been identified as a feasible yet legal means of demonstrating better
value for each healthcare dollar. The present fee-for-service payment system rewards “volume” over “value”. Physicians and other stakeholders
tend to be paid for how much they do rather than how well they do it. On the contrary, clinical integration programs are designed to control costs and
achieve the desired “value” by engaging physicians to help find ways to decrease clinical practice variation, improve preventive care, decrease wastes,
increase efficiency, and create better management of chronic disease.
An effective Clinical Integration program calls for physicians to develop active and ongoing clinical initiatives that are designed to control costs and
improve the quality of health care services. CI programs demonstrate how independent physicians on the medical staff of the same hospital or hospital
system can join together in an organization that allows them to: (1) identify and adopt clinical protocols for the treatment of particular
disease states, (2) develop systems to monitor compliance with the adopted protocols on both an inpatient and outpatient basis, (3) collaborate with a
hospital or hospital system to encourage compliance with inpatient performance improvement processes and protocols, and consequently (4) enter into
physician-directed "pay-for-performance" and other contractual arrangements with health plans in a way that financially recognizes the physicians' efforts
to improve health care quality and efficiency.
History
Ascension St. Vincent’s has had a Physician-Hospital Organization (PHO) since the mid-1980s. However, over the past 15 years, it had been
largely dormant.
The PHO was called Preferred Care, Inc., and was established to deal with the managed care risk contracts and capitation of the day.
Upon the advice of consultants, it was decided that this existing PHO structure logically should be the backbone of the new endeavor.
A new Steering Committee of enthusiastic physicians was formed in February 2011. This group met monthly to transition the PHO into a
more contemporary alignment strategy. The resulting endeavor was renamed the Ascension St. Vincent’s Physician Alliance, and the decision was
made to forge ahead with the development of a Clinical Integration program. A new Operating Agreement was drafted and by
January 2013, all physician members joined the STVPA by signing new Provider Agreements.
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