Premier awarded key subcontract from Deloitte Consulting to support the implementation of the Million Hearts Cardiovascular Disease Risk Reduction Model
Through its acquisition of CECity, Premier, has been awarded a subcontract from Deloitte Consulting for data registry support to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). This project is part of CMS’s Million Hearts Cardiovascular Disease Risk Reduction payment model, which is its first test to determine if financially rewarding physicians for reducing the risk of first heart attacks or strokes among high-risk patients produces better outcomes.
Million Hearts is a national initiative to prevent one million heart attacks and strokes, two of the leading causes of death in the United States. As part of the initiative, CMS launched the Million Hearts: Cardiovascular Disease Risk Reduction Model (MH Model) to identify and test scalable models of care delivery that reduce the risk of initial heart attacks or strokes. Specifically, the model aims to improve quality while maintaining budget neutrality for Medicare beneficiaries ages 18-79 who have not had a previous heart attack or stroke. Beginning in the first quarter of 2016, the five-year MH Model will employ a randomized controlled design with more than 1.3 million Medicare beneficiaries and 720 diverse practices.
“Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. and costs the nation over $300 billion each year,” said Shobhik Chaudhuri, Director, Deloitte & Touche LLP, and engagement leader at Deloitte. “CMS’s Million Hearts Model demonstrates innovation and forward-thinking in healthcare as the new payment model will help achieve the CMS Innovation Center goals of improved care for patients, better health for our communities, and lower costs through improvement for our healthcare system.”
The MH Model’s population health approach will use risk stratification to identify Medicare patients most at risk of a first heart attack or stroke in the next year and incent practices to help reduce these risks through clinical and behavioral interventions.
The Deloitte Team will operationalize, oversee and monitor the MH Model implementation, as well as create a structured approach to collecting information, implementing improvements and complying with federal program requirements. The Team will also work to develop and implement a continuous learning system that allows participants to gain the knowledge needed to improve the cardiovascular health outcomes of the communities they serve, and to systemically capture and scale successful practices for the wider care community.
CECity will be leveraged to create a cloud-based registry that automates the collection of clinical, quality and structural data from model participants to generate the quality measures, performance reports, and insights necessary for monitoring, evaluation and continuous learning. CECity’s platform automates the flow of information directly from physician practices to the Million Hearts clinical data registry.
“Through CECity, Premier will provide the registry backbone for the MH Model that could support other models and emerging federal value-based payment programs in the future,” said Keith J. Figlioli, senior vice president of healthcare informatics, Premier. “We are excited to begin working with CMS and participating practices to fight the risk of heart disease and stroke in our country.”
The financial terms of the subcontract agreement with Deloitte were not disclosed.