Helping Physicians Achieve Meaningful Use in California: CalHIPSO’s Sustainability Strategy

So the value of data analytics, and the way we’re approaching our data analytics efforts, is to make it possible for the provider to collect the data they need, and then participate in whatever value-based payment program they’re involved in. So one of the things we did early on with MedeAnalytics and with our team here, was to look at the various data elements available to our team here, and we cross-referenced those with the various programs providers are participating in. One example is monitoring the hemoglobin a1c value for diabetics, which is an element in so many of the programs [that measure clinical outcomes]. It helps the provider understand what’s going on with that measure. That having been said, many of our providers are still getting ready with the basics of meaningful use.

So you could help them extract data on just about any broadly tracked measure?

We’re not quite ready for launch yet, we’ll be launching in about a month. But, no surprise to anybody, data analytics is expensive to do in a onesie-twosie setting; that’s why it hasn’t been done, right? So you have to scale it. And how do you do that? So you say, for this price, you’re going to be able to get this much data. So your best value is the lunch special, where you get choices A and B, but if you go totally a la carte, it will cost you more. So you get the most value by staying within certain parameters, right? So that’s how we make data analytics affordable for them. And our small-clinic market is not quite ready to put data analytics into their operations today. But there are business aggregators—IPAs, health plans, particularly the public health plans, larger hospital systems that might want to work with these clinics. So we’re helping these help sponsor some of these costs, to help these physicians participate. Because physicians are kind of a “show me” group, so until they can see the potential rewards, they’re going to be a bit reluctant to start participating.

And you’re working in other areas as well, right?

Yes. So the biggest question on many people’s minds is, what is the sustainability plan for regional extension centers in general, and for CalHIPSO in particular? So in October, we hired Karynsue Rose-Thomas, our chief of business development, who used to be the director of the REC in Orange County. She understands the needs of the provider community, and has been helping us to develop a set of products and services that we’re getting ready to launch. We actually have three strategies, as outlined on our website (www.calhipso.org). But, per sustainability, there are three big categories of strategies. The first strategy is data analytics, as we’ve discussed.

The second strategy is to provide is fee-based adoption services. What does that mean? It means that right now, as the REC, we help providers install EHRs to get to meaningful use; and we’re able to offer that for little or no money, because we receive the federal grant that subsidizes that work. And we recognize that that work continues, because the providers have to go through stage two; and many specialists don’t qualify. So we’re going to be offering HealthE Services—a menu of different services that providers can purchase. And we’re trying to keep the rates affordable; and we’ll be working with our partners, our local extension centers, our own staff, and we’ll be marketing a line of business—essentially, health information technology adoption services.

The third strategy is what we call business partnerships; we’ve got 8,500 providers, and they keep joining. And that’s a market aggregation, isn’t it? So we have, not surprisingly, many different kinds of companies saying, could we partner with you, on a revenue-sharing basis? So we are evaluating those opportunities on a case-by-case basis, to determine which of those would meet our members’ needs, where they would provide the services. And the first partnership will be with ClearData, a company that offers privacy and security services. And that’s something that our providers need to get to stage 1 of meaningful use and beyond; and it’s a unique enough service; and we’ll be offering that to our members and others. So that’s one example of a business partnership; and we’ll be offering others as well in the future.

So what will happen in the next year?

We have two big goals in the next year. Goal number one is to get as many of our 6,187 providers to meaningful use, Stage 1. So we’re starting the year with having to help nearly 5,000. And what’s interesting is that 1,200 is as many has some RECs have in their entire networks. So let’s get as many of those 6,187 providers to stage 1 MU within the year—and my goal, frankly, is 100 percent. And our second goal is to transition CalHIPSO from a federal grant-funded organization to a services provider that can help them be successful in the new healthcare environment. So we want to pivot ourselves within a year to the new situation. We have one year before the federal funding ends, on January 1, 2014.

Those are quite ambitious goals.