ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As health systems and networks move toward value-based care and assume increasing responsibility for the health outcomes of large populations, the need for effective care management programs becomes a fundamental component of any population health program. Today, McKesson announced a new care management workflow and documentation solution – McKesson Care ManagerTM – specifically designed for the provider environment to help affect patient behavior and improve clinical and financial outcomes.
McKesson Care Manager provides a holistic view of the patient, using an evidence-based clinical assessment that incorporates multiple conditions and social factors to help accurately assess patients’ care gaps and barriers to accessing care. The result is an integrated care plan, informed by clinical, financial and quality data, that includes goals, interventions and education tailored to meet the patient’s needs. That information helps care managers identify and proactively manage patients who would benefit most from targeted programs.
St. Vincent’s Health Partners, Inc. (SVHP), of Bridgeport, Conn., served as the beta partner for McKesson Care Manager. SVHP is a URAC-certified, physician health organization with nearly 400 local primary care and specialist physicians in over 50 practices. Its member hospital is the 473-bed St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport. SVHP adopted a hybrid model comprising a centralized infrastructure that also supports a care management presence in the physician’s office.
“We at St. Vincent’s Health Partners take pride in supporting our providers with the transition to value-based care,” says Dr. Michael Hunt, CMO/CMIO, St. Vincent’s Health Partners. “We use McKesson’s Population Manager™, McKesson Risk Manager™ and now McKesson Care Manager™ so we can manage and measure patient care at the time of service, during transitions in care, and between each encounter in the context of a patient-centric care model.”
“McKesson Care Manager helps us identify and manage patients needing high levels of care and intervention. Our care teams are able to stay connected to their patients and actively influence them to close care gaps and improve outcomes,” adds Hunt. “The success we achieve reflects directly on the health of the community we serve. We’ve seen the cost of care decrease substantially while improving the patient’s quality of life when we aggressively manage the patient’s care using a unified care plan.”
More than 75 percent of U.S. healthcare dollars are spent on patients with chronic conditions, with just 5 percent of the population accounting for half of all healthcare spending. To reduce these costs, healthcare organizations are being asked to deliver care at a contained cost rather than traditional fee-for-service reimbursement. Meeting these demands requires improving the health of patients with widespread chronic diseases.
Designed to address this need, McKesson Care Manager provides a streamlined, analytics-informed workflow that identifies, stratifies and prioritizes patients needing support and a single work queue that helps care managers manage their daily tasks. The solution uses automated, rules-based algorithms to update care plans with recent changes to clinical, lab and medication data, along with risk scores and utilization cost and likelihood of admission data. McKesson Care Manager helps to enable a proactive team approach to patient care using consistent guidelines and access to a comprehensive patient record and care plan.
“McKesson Care Manager enables providers to coordinate care across the continuum. This helps to ensure that patients don’t get lost in follow-up and are getting the right care in the most appropriate setting,” said Rose Higgins, senior vice president and general manager of McKesson’s population and risk management business. “With more proactive care management, providers can reduce unnecessary hospitalizations and emergency room visits while improving outcomes for the patient.”
For more information, visit http://www.mckesson.com/mckesson-care-manager.
About McKesson Corporation
McKesson Corporation, currently ranked 15th on the FORTUNE 500, is a healthcare services and information technology company dedicated to making the business of healthcare run better. We partner with payers, hospitals, physician offices, pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies and others across the spectrum of care to build healthier organizations that deliver better care to patients in every setting. McKesson helps its customers improve their financial, operational, and clinical performance with solutions that include pharmaceutical and medical-surgical supply management, healthcare information technology, and business and clinical services. For more information, visit us at www.mckesson.com.
About St. Vincent's Health Partners
In response to the rapidly-changing healthcare environment, in June 2012 regional physicians and the 473-bed St. Vincent's Medical Center, (www.stvincents.org) developed a new physician hospital organization (PHO), St. Vincent's Health Partners, Inc. (SVHP). Serving southwestern Connecticut, SVHP, a PHO comprised of more than 300 healthcare providers and St. Vincent's Medical Center, provides a strategy to improve patient care in this new environment.
The St Vincent's Health Partners PHO aligns physician and hospital efforts through active coordination of care and data sharing. As a result of this collaboration, patients receive better healthcare across the entire continuum of care. Through its partnership and shared information technology, SVHP allows participating primary care and specialist physicians to perform well under new healthcare reimbursement models that reward clinical integration and improved quality of care. For more information, visit us at www.stvincentshealthpartners.org.