HMSA Partnership Seeks Improved Care and Reduced Costs

By Wendy Osher

Maui Memorial Medical Center, courtesy photo.

The state’s largest health insurer, HMSA (Hawaii Medical Service Association) has entered into a new partnership aimed at improving care are reducing costs.

The partnership between HMSA, the state’s network of hospitals, and national Premier healthcare alliance was announced today.

The newly announced Advanced Hospital Care  program is the nation’s first statewide partnership between a health plan and hospitals to measure patient care.

The program was launched four years ago by Premier healthcare in other states.  It specifically sets targets to help hospitals measure and expedite improvements in performance.

The Advanced Hospital Care program seeks to eliminate avoidable hospital mortalities, reduce the costs of care for hospitalizations, deliver reliable and effective care, improve patient safety by preventing infections and birth injuries, and reduce preventable re-admissions.

According to HMSA and Premier officials, the program has saved more than 25,000 lives and $2.85 billion in 30 months at the 157 hospitals using the program at 33 states across the nation.

“We believe that teaming up with hospitals to ensure better care for patients can also slow the unsustainable growth in health care costs,” said HMSA Senior Vice President Hilton Raethel.

“This new partnership has considerable promise to improve care by giving us tools and resources needed to compare ourselves against national benchmarks and work collaboratively with some of the best hospitals in the nation on performance improvement,” said Kevin A. Roberts, president and chief executive officer of Castle Medical Center.

The goals of Advanced Hospital Care are  also closely aligned with the health care reform law, which includes a national requirement for Medicare to pay hospitals based on their achievement of quality benchmarks.

“We have a disciplined, measured, and organized methodology for building and sustaining change,” said Premier President and Chief Executive Officer Susan DeVore.