Banner Health Joins Excelera® Specialty Pharmacy Network
Minneapolis, MINN (PRWEB) July 29, 2014 -- ExceleraRx Corp. announced that Banner Health, one of the nation’s largest health systems, has joined the Excelera national specialty pharmacy network and national collaborative platform to retain ownership and control of integrated coordinated care for its patients who require specialty drugs, and to advance value through drug therapy standards.
The Excelera network consists of point-of-care based specialty pharmacies owned by health systems and academic medical centers. The network provides members nationally scaled infrastructure and support to help them gain access to limited-distribution drugs and restrictive payer agreements so members can provide continuity of care for their patients with complex conditions who require specialty drugs. The network also serves as a national platform for collaboration to optimize outpatient specialty drug therapy value for population health.
“Joining the Excelera network strengthens Banner Health’s healthcare capabilities,” said Pamela Nenaber, Chief Executive Officer, Pharmacy Services, Banner Health. “Our commitment to strengthening our medication management capability is integral to population health management. The decision not to outsource clinical and financial management of specialty medications will be essential in maintaining the continuum of care for our patients.”
“We are excited to welcome Banner Health to the Excelera network,” said Albert “Bert” Zimmerli, ExceleraRx Corp. Board Chair and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Intermountain Healthcare. “Awareness is growing among top health systems and academic medical centers that there is a substantial new national collaboration opportunity to increase quality, value and financial performance by retaining complex patients for outpatient specialty drug therapy and increasing resources to physician thought leaders.”
The Excelera organization will increase Banner Health’s speed to market by helping develop key specialty pharmacy capabilities including training, operations, data aggregation, reporting for drug manufacturers and payers, revenue cycle management and pharmacy business office.
Specialty pharmaceuticals are expensive drugs that may require special handing and administration and are often used to treat the most ill and clinically complex patients.
Within the conventional pharmacy model, patients are required to obtain specialty drugs from an outside specialty pharmacy – impacting a health system’s ability to provide continuity of care. When this happens, the health system does not have control as to when the patient initiates therapy and is not able to manage or monitor it. As a result, health systems and payers may incur higher medical costs, lower patient satisfaction, and suboptimal health outcomes as care plans are not fulfilled as intended.
The Excelera network will create national-scale efficiency and new levels of quality standards, and will negotiate on behalf of its member organizations to remove barriers to specialty drug access and monitoring. Patients and providers of Excelera network members benefit from a member-owned specialty pharmacy in their care team that can easily access specialty pharmaceuticals and knows the patient’s care plan.
The Excelera network also provides its member organizations with support in obtaining payer contracts for reimbursement of specialty pharmaceuticals in an outpatient setting; sophisticated data management infrastructure required for drug manufacturer and payer access agreements including data informatics, analytics, timeliness, accuracy, format and national scale; and contract management related to data and compliance with manufacturer standards.
In addition to Banner Health, the Excelera organization includes Henry Ford Health System, Marshfield Clinic, Catholic Health Initiatives, Fairview Health Services (which includes the University of Minnesota Medical Center), Intermountain Healthcare, Avera Health, and Regional Health.
About Banner Health
Headquartered in Phoenix, Banner Health is one of the largest, not-for-profit health care systems in the country. The system manages 25 acute-care hospitals, the Banner Health Network and Banner Medical Group, long-term care centers, outpatient surgery centers and an array of other services including family clinics, home care and hospice services, and a nursing registry. For more than 60 years, Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center has trained residents and fellows through its graduate medical education programs. Banner Health is in seven states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada and Wyoming. For more information, visit http://www.BannerHealth.com.
About Excelera
ExceleraRx Corp., a national network of specialty pharmacies that are health system and academic medical center based, was formed to enable member organizations to gain access to limited distribution drugs and restricted payer agreements. The Excelera network provides national-scale efficiency and collaboration to improve quality and value of outpatient specialty drug therapy for population health outcomes. Excelera’s mission is to “provide tools, technology and best practices around high-performing specialty pharmacy capabilities to network members so that they can provide integrated, coordinated care to complex patients at the point of care leading to improved health outcomes and decreased healthcare costs.” For more information about Excelera, visit http://www.excelerarx.com.
Dick Schirber, ExceleraRx Corp., http://www.excelerarx.com, +1 612-672-7036, [email protected]
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