Forum September Summit Update 2021

I hope you enjoyed the Health Evolution Forum Roundtable meetings at the Summit, whether you joined virtually or in person. You can find a summary of any meetings you might have missed below. In particular, I would like to call your attention to 3 key action items coming out of the Summit Roundtable meetings:

1. Endorse the 3-part Health Equity Pledge here. We will be publishing a list of participating organizations later this month and hope you will join the Pledge to help the industry make long-awaited progress on this critical topic.
2. Indicate your level of interest in participating in a value-based care cohort study focused on the commercially insured population here. This is NOT a firm commitment to participate – just an expression of interest so the work group can gauge interest across different geographies.
3. Share the contact information of anyone in your organization who would be interested in contributing to the development of industry standards for data partnerships of payer, provider, and life science organizations with technology companies.

Finally, I would welcome any feedback or questions about your experience in the Forum so far (you can email me directly at calebf@healthevolution.com).

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The Roundtable on Community Health and Advancing Health Equity reviewed key accomplishments and outputs of the past Fellowship year, including the Health Equity Pledge and Health Equity Roadmap for CEOs. The discussion focused on proposed milestones and actions to advance objectives for the Roundtable and its Work Groups—including the promulgation of a statement on COVID-19 funds and the development of a cohort study focused on social drivers of health. The handout from the session is available here.

Key accomplishments and outputs to date include:

1. The Health Equity Pledge to address disparities more strategically and to accelerate equity by collecting and stratifying race, ethnicity, language, and sex (REaLS) data across top quality and access metrics.
2. The Health Equity Roadmap for Health Care CEOs, which includes cross-sector guidance to develop an enterprise-wide health equity strategy and to achieve the Health Equity Pledge objectives.
3. Guidance on Maximizing Impact for COVID-19 Recovery and Beyond: Recommendations for Effective Use of Federal Funds to Address Drivers of Health, currently under review for publication.
4. The Health Care CEO Guide on , Increasing Vaccine Uptake in Diverse Communities which includes 10 steps to increase vaccine confidence and accessibility.

Looking Ahead: The 2021-22 Forum Fellowship Year

• The Work Group on Leveraging Data to Improve Health Equity will focus on garnering additional industry commitment for the Health Equity Pledge, with the public launch for the Pledge planned for early October. The Work Group will develop best practices and cross-sector standards for sharing REaLS data and in increasing collection of gold standard voluntarily self-reported demographic data. The group will also identify disparity-sensitive quality and access measures for Pledge participants to report on as a key objective.
• The Work Group on Building Scalable Models and Community Partnerships to Address Social Determinants of Health will initiate a cohort study effort for cross-sector collaboration across 3-5 unique geographies to identify and address high-priority community needs, including by adapting elements of the Rhode Island Life Index. The Work Group will also focus on developing best practices to triage and prioritize community health initiatives and alliances, including through the lens of ROI.
• Recommendations for future Work Groups in the Roundtable included mental and behavioral health, particularly for groups such as children and unpaid caregivers, standardizing community health needs assessment approaches, community health investment, collaboration with the public safety sector, and rural health.

Reminders/action items include:

• Commit your organization to the Health Equity Pledge and encourage others to do the same.
• Share Recommendations for Effective Use of Federal Funds to Address Drivers of Health with public sector partners once published.
• Ensure your organization is participating in the Health Evolution LEAP Survey.
• Review revised charter language and provide additional suggestions or edits.
• Interested in switching or joining a Work Group? Email lesleyb@healthevolution.com indicating your interest.

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The Roundtable on New Models of Care Delivery reviewed key accomplishments and outputs of the past Fellowship year—including a document with Guiding Principles for VBP Partnerships and a sketch of a cohort study on value-based care—and focused discussion on proposed milestones and actions to advance objectives for the Roundtable and its Work Groups—including areas of focus within primary care and home-based care. The handout from the session is available here.

Work Group on Leveraging Value-Based Payments to Increase Health Care Value and Resilience:

• Building upon the principles of VBP published earlier this year, the VBP Work Group plans to launch a cohort study that will share data and best practices across participating organizations, enabling participants to learn what works (and what doesn’t) when advancing VBP in the private sector.
• Over the coming months, the work group will design study parameters that detail the requirements to participate in the study. (Those interested in learning more about the study can indicate interest here).

Work Group on Reinventing Primary and Preventative Care

• Last year, the Work Group explored topics shaping the primary care landscape, including access demands, physician burnout, the emergence of new technologies, and increasing vertical consolidation. Fellows discussed the need to move beyond one-size-fits-all primary care models, consider consumer segmentation strategies used in other industries, and potentially optimize tech capabilities to reinvent traditional primary care models. (You can find a summary of these discussions here.)
• Looking ahead to next year, the Work Group plans to consider how to incorporate new technologies into primary care to address challenges identified last year while ensuring these new tools do not increase fragmentation. Fellows interested in joining this Work Group should reach out to julier@healthevolution.com.

Work Group on Advancing Innovative Home-Based Care Models

• Many of the Work Group’s efforts to date explored chronic illness in the home. (You can find a summary of these discussions here.) Looking ahead, Fellows ratified a name change for the group that would eliminate “chronic” from the title to expand the group’s focus to include home-based care models for acute and other non-chronic needs.
• Fellows agreed that several barriers to innovative home-based care are receding, such as regulatory and reimbursement policy changes. The discussion focused on the need for regulators and public-private partners to foster more holistic home-based care models incentivizing appropriate care instead of more fragmented programs that fail to fully realize the savings of reduced hospitalizations and emergency room visits. Fellows interested in joining this Work Group should reach out to julier@healthevolution.com.

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The Roundtable on Next Generation IT in Health Care reviewed key accomplishments and outputs of the past Fellowship year—including a digital health maturity model framework and 14 draft principles on data governance—and focused discussion on proposed milestones and actions to advance objectives for the Roundtable and its Work Groups–including refinement and dissemination of the industry principles on data governance and a framework for curating, integrating, and driving engagement of clinical health apps. The handout from the session is available here.

Key accomplishments and outputs to date include:

• Developed a digital health maturity model framework with a list of core capabilities needed to succeed (e.g., competitive awareness, technical infrastructure, etc.) with strategies to develop those core capabilities (see page 6 of the handout).
• Developed a set of 14 draft principles on data governance in health IT product development partnerships (see page 7 of the handout).

Looking Ahead: The 2021-22 Forum Fellowship Year

• The Work Group on Digital Health and App Experience will focus on business cases for the usage of clinical health apps and identify the criteria and methods for the curation of those apps (example criteria: engagement, effectiveness, equity, privacy, interoperability). The group will prioritize a set of 3-5 app types that offer the most promise and develop best practices for their integration into multimodal, connected care, as well as establish a collaborative learning lab for sharing best practices and case studies on app engagement by patients and providers.
• The Work Group on Governance and Use of Patient Data in Health IT Products will develop a white paper that finalizes and fleshes out the principles on data governance. The group will also develop an industry coalition that pledges to adopt those data governance principles and identify ways in which those principles could be readily incorporated in data contracts.
• Potential topics for the Work Groups in the Roundtable include using data from clinical apps for real-world evidence purposes, inclusivity in Health IT, cybersecurity, and workforce shortage.

Reminders/action items include:

• Nominate a C-suite officer with technical knowledge (CIO, CTO, CMIO, etc.) from your organization to join one of the Work Groups (Digital Health and App Experience OR Governance and Use of Patient Data in Health IT Products) by emailing Caleb Flint at calebf@healthevolution.com.
• Share the contact information of anyone in your organization who would be interested in contributing to the development of industry standards for data partnerships to calebf@healthevolution.com.

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Submit your recommendations for new Fellows
We welcome your suggestions for additional Fellows to invite to the Health Evolution Forum. To nominate a colleague, click here.

Thanks,
– Caleb Flint