Highmark, Delaware system join in venture for change
Highmark Health is joining a Delaware hospital system in an effort to try ditching the ways of providing and paying for medical care that have been used for decades in favor of a model that includes expanded use of technology in the patient’s home.
Wilmington-based ChristianaCare and Pittsburgh-based Highmark Health, the corporate parent of Allegheny Health Network and a Blue Cross Blue Shield insurer, will collaborate in a “radical departure from the transactional, fee-for-service model that underpins much of American health care,” according to a statement released by both organizations.
The new organization, which hasn’t been named, will combine Highmark’s vast health insurance claims data and analytics with ChristianaCare’s embrace of virtual health care to remake how people get medical attention and how it gets paid for.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been driving health care into the virtual world through telehealth visits with doctors, which have increased exponentially since the pandemic began.
Moreover, both organizations have already started working on ways to wring costs out of health care while improving quality and, through the expanded use of data and technology, catching medical problems before they become costly emergencies.
“Never before have we
needed to do something different more than right now,” physician and ChristianaCare President and CEO Janice E. Nevin said. “The system isn’t working, so we’re changing the system. The new company aims to be a game-changer.”
The 10-year nonprofit venture, which may create forprofit products and services, will be overseen by leaders of each organization and will operate an in-house think tank called the Solutions Design Center.
The organizations have asked the Solutions Design Center to develop data and technology-based ways to improve access to medical care while lowering overall costs for patients throughout Highmark’s service area, which includes Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
“We are rethinking the way care is delivered and the way it’s paid for, creating a new health care ecosystem that will enable better health and more affordable, accessible, high-quality care that is continuous and datadriven,” said Dr. Nevin, a University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health graduate.
Highmark Health Chief Operating Officer Karen Hanlon said the deal will let the companies combine their strengths.
“As two nationally recognized innovators, it makes perfect sense to leverage our combined expertise and resources to improve health outcomes, decrease costs, streamline processes between receiving and paying for care,” she said in a statement.
The new venture will also have a Center for Virtual Health to develop virtual capabilities for primary and specialty care. A hint of those plans may be seen in a home care device developed at ChristianaCare last year that uses Amazon’s AI voice Alexa to guide patients who are recovering at home and to answer their questions based on their individual medical history.
The device was developed in ChristianaCare’s Health & Technology Innovation Center in Wilmington, which has also worked with Minneapolis-based medical device-maker Medtronic to improve patient safety and explore tech-enabled ways to address chronic conditions such as congestive heart failure.
“We have a bold vision of the future: All care that can be digital will be digital, and all care that can be done in the home or in the community will be done in the home or in the community,” Dr. Nevin said in an earlier statement.
During a 2018 “McKinsey on Healthcare” podcast, Dr. Nevin said the Alexa device might also be used to help patients prepare for surgery and manage chronic medical conditions at home.
ChristanaCare Health System is the biggest in Delaware, with 1,299 hospital beds, a Level I trauma center, a Level III neonatal intensive care unit and seven urgent care centers in Delaware and New Jersey that are operated in partnership with Atlanta- based GoHealth Urgent Care.
Highmark’s health system arm, Allegheny Health Network, operates 13 hospitals — 14 when including one scheduled to open this summer in Pine — and six new cancer treatment centers, including an academic research hub at Allegheny General Hospital.
Highmark’s deal with ChristianaCare — which is not a merger or exclusive agreement — is the latest in the Pittsburgh health insurer giant’s strategy of creating partnerships, rather than acquiring assets, to compete in a highly competitive marketplace.
These partnerships include one with Penn State Health to invest $1 billion in new community hospitals and medical offices, as well as another with Geisinger Health System to invest more than $100 million to improve existing clinical facilities in north-central Pennsylvania.