Client Profile:

200-bed acute care hospital and affiliated multi-specialty medical group.

Challenge:

The health system initiated a CMS Medicare Shared Savings Program Accountable Care Organization. During the first year of operations of the 10,000 beneficiary ACO, the physician executive director resigned.

The health system, which has been an i3 client for several years needed to engage interim leadership immediately in order to maintain momentum and trust among the participating physicians. In collaboration with another consulting group, within one week i3 mobilized the resources needed to support our client's critical ACO enterprise. While neither consulting group possessed direct experience in ACOs, together i3 and the other consultant brought leadership skills, deep medical management knowledge, strong understanding of regulatory process, experience in physican-hospital collaboration and exceptional analytical expertise.

Results

The interim leadership provided has not only stabilized the ACO organization, it has moved the organization forward.

Within 10 weeks of starting, the ACO successfully completed the year 1 Quality reporting required of its participating physicians
Within 4 months, the organization began rolling-out its first care coordination program- an effort joining the resources and expertise of the hospital and physicians to bring the right care at the right time in the right setting to the most challenging chronically ill beneficiaries.
Within 4 months, an organization, practice, and physician scorecards were initiated in order to provide the ACO, the physician groups and the individual physicians with more timely feedback on quality, utilization and cost of care.

As interim leadership, i3 and its partner consultant are leading the health system's evaluation of the long-term fit of the ACO among its strategies to grow and excel in the population health arena.

ACO Interim Leadership