Aledade Teams Up with West Virginia Medical Institute to Create First Ever Primary Care Physician-Led ACO in the Mountain State
Washington, D.C. (PRWEB) March 25, 2015 -- Local doctors in the Mountain State will soon have a new partner to help keep their patients healthy. Maryland-based Aledade, Inc. has announced a partnership with the West Virginia Medical Institute (WVMI) to help independent primary care physicians in the state form and operate an Accountable Care Organization (ACO).
Aledade partners with independent doctors to create and run ACOs, networks of physicians who band together to deliver coordinated care to patients. They operate under a payment structure that rewards positive health outcomes for patients, instead of the volume of health care services delivered.
"For the first time in history, we have the technological capability and the financial incentives for primary care doctors to practice medicine the way they’ve always wanted,” said Dr. Farzad Mostashari, CEO and co-founder of Aledade. "Family physicians have a unique connection with their patients – they are best positioned to lead the transformation towards value-based health care, and our ACO will empower them to do so. Aledade is excited work with WVMI to give physicians the tools they need to deliver the highest quality personalized care to West Virginians."
Aledade and WVMI will work with physicians across West Virginia to build the state’s first Medicare ACO led by independent primary care doctors. Aledade ACOs focus on delivering the highest-quality care to patients, with an emphasis on preventative care, high-value referral networks, customized technology, and unmatched analysis of patient claims and electronic health record (EHR) data to identify patients who need help before serious medical problems arise. Aledade’s partnership with WVMI will enable the new ACO to provide in-person support for physicians throughout the entire setup and operation of the new organization.
Aledade and WVMI will recruit a core group of top primary care practices to lead the ACO. Initial recruitment will focus on the Charleston metro area, expanding to other parts of the state over the next several months.
“As a company with a mission of improving health care quality, we are eager to support practices participating in this ACO,” said WVMI CEO John Wiesendanger. “Our experience offering practice transformation services such as EHR implementation, meaningful use and patient centered medical home certification has tremendous potential to help these practices achieve their goals of better health, better care and lower costs.”
WVMI’s specialized Health Information Technology Practice Coordinators will provide onsite consultation and technical assistance for practices as they optimize EHRs, ensure the security of patient data transmission, and use analytics to gain insight from records on how to keep patients healthier. WVMI will also provide direct support to help practices implement and enhance wellness services and care coordination, including after-hours, specialist, and long term care coordination.
Aledade will also bring a regulatory expertise to West Virginia physician practices, ensuring all participating doctors meet necessary ACO and meaningful use standards. Internally, the ACO will establish quality benchmarks and a governing board to develop and share best practices for patient outreach, engagement, and treatment.
About Aledade
Founded in 2014, Aledade is a new company with an old-fashioned goal: putting doctors back in control of health care. Aledade partners with independent, primary care physicians to provide everything the doctors need to create and run an Accountable Care Organization (ACO) – from business and practice transformation services to upfront capital and cutting-edge technology. The company is led by CEO and co-founder Dr. Farzad Mostashari, former National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and has already established successful organizations in New York, Delaware, Maryland, and Arkansas.
Aledade employs a team of health policy, regulatory, data and practice transformation experts to implement customized solutions and continuous, on-the-ground support partners to help doctors in all types of communities across America preserve their autonomy, deliver better care to their patients, reduce overall costs, and keep independent physician practices flourishing. For more, visit: http://www.aledade.com.
About WVMI
Based in Charleston, WVMI, along with its Quality Insights family of companies, is a national resource for health care quality, specializing in data collection and analysis, continuous quality improvement, health information technology, practice transformation, and utilization review and management. Its 400+ employees and contractors support quality initiatives from the VHA, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, The Office of the National Coordinator, state government and private payers.
WVMI offers nearly a decade of experience with electronic health records and practice redesign through its work as a Medicare Quality Improvement Organization and Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center (REC) grant subrecipient. Under the REC program, funded by the federal Office of the National Coordinator, WVMI assisted more than 600 West Virginia practices in selection and implementation of electronic health records and meeting the federal government’s standards for meaningful use.
Learn more about how WVMI is measuring quality and inspiring change at http://www.wvmi.org.
Adam Brickman, Aledade, http://www.aledade.com, +1 914-548-3748, [email protected]
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