Aetna and the 19-hospital Bon Secours Health System, based in Marriottsville, Md., have announced a new accountable care agreement that will support 57,000 fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries in Kentucky, New York, South Carolina and Virginia.

Bon Secours will use technology and care coordination services from Aetna subsidiary Healthagen to help coordinate health care for Medicare beneficiaries whose primary physician participates in the Good Help ACO, one of 106 new ACOs in the U.S. The agreement is designed to improve the quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries under the Medicare Shared Savings Program while lowering overall healthcare costs. In addition, Aetna will begin administering Bon Secours’ employee medical benefits plan beginning September 1, 2013. Bon Secours provides health benefits to 12,000 employees and their dependents.

Healthagen will provide Bon Secours sophisticated technology, analytics and care coordination staff to help physicians care for Medicare patients who need support for emerging and chronic health issues. The capabilities will complement existing Bon Secours technology, such as electronic medical records (EMRs). Healthagen solutions will include:

• Health information exchange technology for the secure, two-way exchange of health information across a patient’s entire care team
•  Desktop-based access to clinical decision support and workflow tools to help physicians track, monitor, coordinate and report on patient health outcomes.

Working together with Bon Secours, we are bringing fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries a new model of healthcare that emphasizes coordination and collaboration,” Tom Grote, president of Aetna’s Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. operations, said in a statement. “We are excited to empower Bon Secours’ physicians with greater access to the information and resources they need to better care for patients and make the experience simpler and more effective. We also look forward to supporting the medical benefits for Bon Secours’ employees.”