5 Ways the ACO Coalition Prepares Attendees for the Future of Healthcare

What attendees at the spring meeting of the ACO & Emerging Healthcare Delivery Coalition^® learn this upcoming Friday will provide actions they can carry over to their job on Monday. When the Coalition meets May 4-5 in Scottsdale, Arizona, attendees will learn the latest on healthcare reform, best practices for cybersecurity, population health strategies, and more.

There is still time to save your seat for the meeting next week. Register here: http://www.ajmc.com/acocoalition/spring17.

Here are 5 topics to learn more about at the spring ACO Coalition meeting in Scottsdale.

1. The latest on healthcare reform

By the time the Coalition meets May 4-5, a vote on a healthcare bill may have already happened in the House. A panel discussion between Avik Roy, Forbes opinion editor and president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity; Sally Pipes, president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute; Ninez A. Ponce, PhD, of the University of California, Los Angeles; and Cheryl Smith Gardner, CEO of the New Mexico health insurance exchange beWellnm, will focus on the latest update to the GOP health plan and potential impacts that the bill could have on populations receiving care under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Before the panel, Roy will give a presentation on the ACA with some background information about what it was trying to accomplish as well as highlighting what changes it did bring and what it was not able to fix in healthcare.

2. Cybersecurity and data protection

Experts agree: it’s not a matter of if, but when a healthcare organization will face a security breach. Lee Barrett, executive director of the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission, will discuss preparedness planning on the part of accountable care organizations and having the right policies in place to prevent breaches and ransomware attacks, especially as healthcare moves to patient-centered care and provides patients with more access to their data.

A following panel discussion will delve into best practices, what gets overlooked, and mHealth issues.

3. Creating public-private partnerships

Christos Galanopoulos, MD, MBA, MS, FACS, and Joe Grzymski, PhD, will present on a unique partnership in Reno, Nevada, where Renown Health partnered with the Desert Research Institute to better understand how the environment affects health. They then partnered with 23andMe and enrolled 10,000 people to analyze genetic data to understand interaction between clinical, social, and environmental impacts on health.

Galanopoulos will then sit on a panel with Ross Owen, MPA, health strategy director for Hennepin County, Minnesota, and Susan Mathieu, MPP, of the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, who will provide their own insights in creating public-private partnerships to improve population health.

4. Value frameworks

As drug prices continue to rise, there are 2 paths in front of the country: price negotiation and value-based pricing. The challenge with value-based pricing is that value can vary with perspective and context, making it difficult to measure. In the keynote speech, Darius Lakdawalla, PhD, of the University of Southern California, will provide an economic perspective on value frameworks, the various frameworks out there and what they measure, and what elements are missing from current frameworks.

5. Future of population health

The final session of the spring meeting will be a recurring favorite: the 2020 series panel discussion. Sachin Jain, MD, MBA, of CareMore; Michael Griffin of Daughters of Charity; and Jonathan Hirsch of Syapse will discuss current issues, challenges, and successes around population health. They will talk about using technology to drive connection, shifting the care paradigm, and more.

Jain’s organization recently unveiled a new model to provide primary care to seniors when they are getting dental work done; Griffin deals with a unique population in New Orleans that is used to getting care in the emergency room and works in a state that just expanded Medicaid; and Hirsch’s company deals with what is on the cutting edge for population health and precision medicine.