Dr Stella Safo: HIV Care Has Always Been Willing to Think Outside the Box

While the health system transitions to value-based care, it can learn a lot of lessons from HIV care delivery, said Stella A. Safo, MD, assistant professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Transcript

In the shift to value-based care, what lessons can be learned from HIV care delivery?

HIV care delivery is a really special place that has a lot of the solutions that we’re all thinking of as we think about the way we want to deliver care in this new system that’s based predominantly on value-base payment structures. Everything from team-based care to engaging the patients in non-traditional settings. A lot of HIV care would go meet HIV patients where they were, on the street, in their home, and also things like non-traditional financial models. When we would get a pocket of money in our HIV clinics, we would use it for not just classic clinical things like paying for a MA [medical assistant], but we would also think maybe we pay our patients to be able to take care of their health. I think HIV care has always been willing to think outside the box, and I hope we can use some of those lessons in some of the work we’re doing in population health.