Prime Healthcare, an 80-provider multi-specialty doctor group primarily based in West Hartford, Conn., just lately made the troublesome resolution to change EHR distributors. In an interview with Healthcare Innovation, Susan Albano, M.B.A., Prime’s CEO, mentioned the transfer is pushed partially by the necessity to reach value-based care.
Healthcare Innovation: Earlier than we get into the EHR change, may you inform us somewhat about Prime Healthcare’s historical past?
Albano: Prime was based in 1998 by a gaggle of main care docs within the Hartford market. At a time when there was lots of capital funding coming in to purchase practices, and hospitals shopping for observe, they have been enthusiastic about staying personal.
The preliminary idea was for our main care group, however on the time, there have been some pulmonologists, endocrinologists and gastroenterologists who have been double-boarded and have been doing main care. They have been introduced into the observe. We’ve got since advanced into a real multi-specialty group.
HCI: Might you speak about your earlier well being IT expertise? Had been all these specialties on the identical EHR or a wide range of EHRs?
Albano: Previous to 2015 we had a blended bag. A number of the suppliers have been on an EHR; many have been nonetheless on paper. In 2015 all of us went onto a hospital EHR. So then it was a requirement at Prime.
HCI: Which hospital system have been you linked to for that?
Albano: Trinity Well being of New England, which is among the ministries of Trinity Well being.
HCI: Had been there some execs and cons to staying on that EHR?
Albano: A few yr and a half in the past, Trinity introduced that they have been going to maneuver everybody nationwide, the entire Trinity community, onto a single occasion of the EHR. Since 2015, we’ve optimized our EHR for our wants as finest we may. The brand new occasion goes to remove all that optimization, so we felt we might be going again into what we contemplate the darkish ages. We have been going to lose performance that we had spent fairly a little bit of time placing collectively, and it was a way more inflexible system to start with, now changing into much more inflexible.
HCI: So that you began trying round at what your alternate options have been?
Albano: I had truthfully been athena for a lot of, a few years. My late husband was a doctor who was a really early athena person. I used to be very acquainted with the corporate and with the EMR. Actually, the one motive we had not gone to athena earlier was as a result of we have been receiving a subsidy to be on the hospital-based EMR. It was a monetary resolution to proceed with the EMR that was assembly our fundamental wants, plus somewhat bit extra. When this occurred, we simply mentioned we have now to have a system that can meet our wants; in any other case we cannot survive within the within the setting that we discover ourselves in.
HCI: When will you go reside on athena?
Albano: December 3 is our go-live date. We’re within the construct part proper now.
HCI: What are some options of athena that appear like they’ll be useful to your clinicians?
Albano: The most important factor for us is that we totally embrace the value-based setting, so all of our contracts now have upside and draw back threat. From my perspective as a observe chief, there are actually three predominant parts of succeeding in value-based care. The primary is supplier engagement. You must have suppliers who’re prepared to work on this setting. The second is it’s important to have good contracts with the payers. However the third, and actually crucial to optimize your expertise, is it’s important to have entry to knowledge — usable, dependable, accessible info that can assist us handle our sufferers. Athena was our greatest choice for that.
HCI: The Trinity EHR is an Epic system, in order that needed to have some interoperability advantages. Is athena promising you will get the identical stream of information with different hospitals and suppliers?
Albano: Sure, and that is critically necessary to us. You recognize, simply since you’re on one occasion of Epic doesn’t suggest we talk with different cases of Epic. We felt that athena has the knowledge switch capabilities and the interoperability that we aren’t going to lose the performance we have now had in Epic.
HCI: Is there any problem with getting all of the legacy knowledge out of 1 system and into the opposite?
Albano: I might say sure. As a result of the hospital goes reside on their new occasion, they’re clearly very busy, so sure that will probably be a problem. However we have now the best folks doing it, and on the athena receiving finish, we really feel very assured about how the information goes to come back in, how it’ll be organized, and the way we’ll entry it.
HCI: Is one other one of many advantages having extra configurability to the wants of the person physicians?
Albano: There’s a lot flexibility with athena that we have by no means had in our legacy system, and definitely we might have had even much less going ahead. There are such a lot of enhanced choices that can assist us in our new contracts. For example, in our GI group, the recollects for colonoscopies. Athena has this seamless system the place they will ship out notices in main care. It is necessary that we have now a contact level with all our Medicare sufferers at the very least every year. There are such a lot of options of athena which can be going to make our life simpler.
HCI: Does Prime have a strong IT group and chief who will help make these selections? Or do you run a fairly lean operation?
Albano: We do run very lean. We’ve got all the time outsourced our IT to the hospital. However we have been fortunate sufficient that the retired CIO from our hospital system occurs to be a good friend and lives within the space, and she or he has been consulting with us and is working for us on a part-time foundation to assist drive this. It is among the challenges we face. We’re going to have to alter our system and doubtless rent somebody to handle these features going ahead.
HCI: You talked about being in these upside/draw back threat preparations, in your contracts. In Connecticut are the industrial payers fairly superior in considering that manner, as a result of not many medical teams across the nation would inform us that each one their contracts are value-based.
Albano: Nicely, after all, Hartford, Connecticut, is taken into account the naton’s insurance coverage capital. It doesn’t imply they’re all the time on the forefront of these items. However I’ve discovered that, sure, we have now been in value-based agreements for a few years now. And, you are proper, once I journey across the nation and discuss to a few of my friends, I am shocked to search out out that they are not there. We have been in draw back threat with Medicare for 5 years now, and we simply this yr entered some draw back threat agreements with a few of the different industrial and Medicare Benefit gamers. So I might say this area appears to be somewhat bit within the forefront. We’re trying ahead to main care capitation. We’re trying ahead to new fashions. Once more, with out, the right engagement, the right contracts, and, extra importantly, the right info and the instruments, we cannot be capable to get there. So athena is that software that we see serving us now, but additionally into the long run.
