States Premier Health Care Players Unite For Shared Services Group

A Northwest Arkansas health system is partnering with three other health systems in Arkansas, as well as the state’s largest health insurance provider, to create a shared services operating company.

The new agreement was announced Oct. 29 by senior health care officials and includes Washington Regional Medical System of Fayetteville, Baptist Health of Little Rock and St. Bernards of Jonesboro.

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) and Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Little Rock are also part of the new organization. UAMS also has a regional campus in Fayetteville.

The new affiliation is called The Partnership for a Healthy Arkansas, a business model that will allow the companies involved to implement programs that improve the quality of health care and lower health care costs for patients and providers throughout the state. 

Bill Bradley, the president and CEO of Washington Regional Medical System in Fayetteville, will be the chairman of the new organization. He said an initial goal is to hire an executive director, a goal he hopes to accomplish in the next 3 to 4 months.

The new organization will not include a merger among any of the founding companies. Joint ownership of the LLC is split five ways.

 “This demonstrates a willingness for some of the state’s premier health care players to work together,” Bradley said. “Our organizations share a common commitment to deliver the best health care and health value to Arkansas citizens. Because all members of this collaboration are headquartered in Arkansas and we are all rooted in a not-for-profit mission, we share a synergy and a focus on improving the financing and delivery of health care to Arkansans, resulting in better health care for all.”

Bradley said the Oct. 29 announcement was the culmination of conversation and planning that dated back three years. Being able to reach the finish line after such a long period, he said, was especially rewarding.

“There’s a lot of times in the course of talking about something for three years that it can lose momentum or die out, and that didn’t happen here,” he explained. “And the reason it didn’t happen is that everybody is vested in our purpose.”

Chris Barber, president and chief executive officer of St. Bernards Healthcare in Jonesboro was elected vice chairman of the new organization.

“Following extensive discussions on how best to improve health care for Arkansans, these organizations came to the conclusion that collaboration on innovative health improvement and efficiency initiatives across the state was the right approach,” Barber said. “We retain our focus on our communities’ needs and learn best practices from each other.”

Shared Services

The Partnership for a Healthy Arkansas is evaluating opportunities to achieve cost savings and performance improvement in three main areas — operational shared services, population health shared services and clinical improvement shared services.

Troy Wells, Baptist Health president and CEO, the secretary/treasurer of The Partnership for a Healthy Arkansas, said specific programs in these three areas will reduce duplication, share the cost of expensive operations and improve performance for the benefit of patients and insurance plan members.

“To be successful, we will engage our affiliated physicians as leaders and partners in many initiatives,” he said.

Shared services organizations are becoming a preferred way for health systems across the country to lower costs and improve performance while remaining independent and community focused. Having a major payer like Arkansas Blue Cross participate, however, is unique among such organizations nationwide.

Examples of potential collaborative efforts include information technology, customer call centers, patient care management and coordination, expensive bio-medical equipment maintenance and quality and financial data analysis.

“A call center is a good example,” said Roxane Townsend, M.D., vice chancellor of clinical programs for UAMS and CEO of UAMS Medical Center. “A call center doesn’t need to be imbedded in an institution. It just needs to be able to function. We all have appointment call centers. Is there value to consolidating those and having a single call center do appointments for all?”

Bradley said it would take a couple of years before the group’s efforts can be measured for success.

“There are measures and metrics for clinical quality and cost and patient satisfaction that we can use,” he said. “We can establish a baseline that we can use and the good news is that our baseline is pretty good already. We can take that and make it better.”

Townsend added: “The success we’ve had already is to have these five different [companies] sit in a room, develop a relationship and develop a level of trust and way they want to work together. I think that has already been a success.”

Shared Goals

Officials believe the new collaboration will facilitate cooperation between the health systems and Arkansas Blue Cross to provide the best care at the lowest cost for the state’s most financially vulnerable individuals, as well as those residents who receive employer-sponsored coverage whether self-funded or fully insured.

“Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield and these four leading health systems have a common goal of ensuring Arkansas’ residents receive high quality, efficient care under new and innovative payment arrangements and insurance products,” said Mark White, president and CEO of Arkansas Blue Cross. “Our collective efforts will ultimately improve the health of Arkansans by working in concert with our health system and physician partners.”

“We are fortunate in Arkansas that the leading health systems and the state’s largest health insurer have a truly collaborative relationship and shared goals,” Townsend added.

UAMS and Baptist Health already are working together to reduce duplication in two clinical areas: vascular surgery and inpatient rehabilitation.

More areas of clinical cooperation are under consideration. In addition, UAMS collaborates with St. Bernards and Washington Regional through its regional programs, partnering on family medicine residency training, telemedicine and a variety of clinical programs including family medicine, geriatrics and high-risk pregnancy.

“UAMS is a valuable state asset and serves all Arkansans with services in all parts of the state,” said Dan Rahn, M.D., chancellor of UAMS, the state’s academic health sciences center. “Because Arkansas ranks 49th in overall health outcomes among the 50 states, we face a collective challenge and responsibility to address high percentages of smoking, poverty, obesity and cardiovascular disease.  Cooperation to maximize resources and improve access to care is the key to improving the health of our citizens, and has a direct impact on employers and our entire economy.”

Bradley said he anticipates that other health care organizations could join the partnership in the future.

“We expect there’s probably other likeminded organizations that will show interest,” he said. “We will obviously consider that on a case-by-case basis. The root of this is we are all nonprofit and community-oriented. That is a core value.”