FIVE TAKEAWAYS
LEVERAGING HEALTH SYSTEM PARTNERSHIPS TO ADVANCE GROWTH AND IMPROVE COORDINATED CARE
1 In an era of significant change,
hospital and healthcare leaders need to evaluate initiatives that best meet their patient needs. Learn from the CEOs of Virtua, Rich Miller, and Penn Medicine, Ralph Muller, on how a partnership between their two systems delivered improved quality care, satisfied patients and drove service line differentiation.
These five question
were presented in a webinar on August 9. The entire webinar can be accessed at modernhealthcare.com/partnerships.
How do your organizations define value?
RICH MILLER: At Virtua we define it in four ways: cost/price, quality and safety, access and service. Consumers are very active in looking at these four areas to make choices about where they’re going for their healthcare.
RALPH MULLER: Patients don’t want to be just seen as inpatients for one problem, they want to be seen across their lifetime of care. Having that coordination over a period of time with readily access points is critical. And we think we’re really succeeding with that.
2
How are your organizations working together?
RICH MILLER: We are working on expanding into other areas like micro-vascular plastic surgery, neurosurgery, and home care services. Penn is helping us fill the gaps with services that weren’t within our scope of what we could offer.
RALPH MULLER: MyPenn Medicine allows the 400,000-plus patients who signed up to schedule appointments, proactively organize upcoming tests, and track medications. As we bring Virtua into this technological space, we can more efficiently share patient information and care for them. We’re focused on staying on top of patients and meeting their needs at all times. This continuity of care is best expressed because of this partnership.
3
How did your system partnership originate, and how does it help to advance your organizations' goals?
RICH MILLER: We needed a cancer partner, and Penn is the strongest in the market. Virtua, on the other hand, is one of the best for primary and secondary care with high quality and low costs, and we wanted to complement those services with top-shelf quaternary services. We want to send patients where they really want to go for quaternary services, and we’ve accomplished that in partnering with Penn.
RALPH MULLER: One-third of our staff and one-third of our patients come from New Jersey. The stars were aligned for this partnership. In the past year, physician satisfaction with this arrangement has been enormously high. We’ve been so pleased that the Virtua family and the Penn Medicine family came together so cohesively.
4
How do you envision the partnership evolving?
RICH MILLER: We’re going to be looking at advanced care in our community for a very long time. We want to make this integration as strong as it can be, so that we can ensure quality measures of care for patients. Realistically, there are going to be challenges along the way, but a strong commitment to the partnership at the very top level is key to working through those challenges.
RALPH MULLER: We are exploring and focusing on opportunities with innovation. We’re organizing teams of physicians, nurses, and all caregivers who are developing pathways that take care of people over time. It not only keeps us more efficient and on track with a patient’s care, but it provides the patient with all the evidence-based best practices at their fingertips
5
Assuming success, what is the market differentiation of this partnership compared to others?
RICH MILLER: I believe you differentiate by quality of care, and people see that readily when you can provide the level of service and integration that we’re providing . When you combine the assets of both our organizations, we have something special.
RALPH MULLER: People come from all around the world for our kind of care. We have the capacity not just to deliver care, but to constantly think about how to innovate in care and where healthcare is going. There’s nobody in the region that comes close to this.