RCxRules recently attended America’s Physician Group’s (APG) Annual Colloquium conference in Washington DC. The focus of the conference was “Thriving in Tomorrow’s New Models and Downside Risk.”

Day 1

On the first day, RCxRules sponsored an invite-only lunch for the APG Clinical Quality Leadership Committee co-chaired by Dr. Lynne Milgram, Sharp Community Medical Group’s CMO, and Dr. Don Rebhum, Healthcare Partners’ National Medical Director. The meeting was an informative conversation around the concepts of the culture of health and social behavioral determinants of health. 

Additionally, we got to really understand the progression and importance of technology from Dr. Kyu Rhee, Chief Health Officer of IBM, where he has global responsibilities for Watson Health and assuring a culture of health at IBM. One quote that struck me was,

“Artificial Intelligence will not replace Healthcare Professionals, but Healthcare Professionals that don’t use AI will get replaced.”

We also learned about the APG–HealthBegins Social Needs Learning Collaborative from Dr. Rishi Manchanda, President and CEO of HealthBegins. This group is for APG members who seek to drive value, quality and impact by refining their approach to social determinants of health.

Day 2

On day two, we jumped right in by focusing on the new value-based models and what they mean for organizations, patients, and their communities. We learned that more will be revealed as CMMI finalizes and publishes these new models.

There was also a fantastic panel discussion on data analytics followed by the APG’s Ambassador Award Case Studies in Excellence 2019: Pearls of Wisdom presentation; where presenters shared lessons learned, best practices, and strategies to consider while on the journey to improving access to high-quality, low-cost healthcare for all Americans.

Summary

The alignment of APG and The CMS Innovation Center’s mission to foster healthcare transformation by finding new ways to pay for and deliver care that can lower costs and improve care was clear. With the uncertainties of the impact of the upcoming election, the movement towards value-based reimbursement models continues to gain broad support. As healthcare costs in this country continue to grow to unmanageable levels, the movement towards models that reward quality outcomes and drive out waste is strong. APG continues to be an ideal place to learn from organizations that are leading this shift. There were tremendous success stories from these healthcare organizations in the form of published case studies. A special congratulations goes out to APG’s 2019 Case Studies in Excellence awardees.