The Institute's Executive Director shares his thoughts on HPM through interviews with media outlets and individual recordings. Advisory Board members also share their opinions.
Building a High Performance Engine for Healthcare: Why Cloud Computing Architecture Matters
Cloud computing will have an immense impact on the economics of managing health plans in the months and years to come. Organizations in the public and private sectors are scrambling for new ways to streamline operations and reduce costs while securing better healthcare outcomes for health plan members.
Specifically, cloud computing offers an opportunity to:
Bring together health plan management data that exists in different databases for consolidated analysis;
Create an architectural framework that allows meaningful analysis to take place for better decision-making;
Collaborate across organizational boundaries in a constructive and HIPAA-compliant manner; and
Accelerate the creation and adoption of shared health plan management strategies.
Health plan administration processes today are hampered by silos of automation based on the limitations of legacy mainframe and client-server systems. Pertinent data is locked in servers and mainframes that cannot be accessed by decision-makers. This is a significant problem when you consider the inter-organizational nature of health plan management. Optimum results – on both the cost containment and healthcare outcome fronts – can only be achieved when employers, beneficiaries and healthcare providers have secure access to current, medical, pharmaceutical and financial information.
The inability to access current data and correlate them for collaborative analysis and action is one of the reasons health plan management is one of the fastest growing budget line-items for organizations.
In this webcast you will receive a multi-disciplinary perspective on:
Why health care reform is creating more pressure for better collaboration among employers, beneficiaries and health providers.
The limitations associated with the current fragmented systems upon which many health plan management systems are based.
How Cloud-Computing infrastructures can immediately reduce costs and improve outcomes for plan members;
Examine the impact that a cloud-based architecture can have on plan design.
The panel of experts discussing these critical issues include:
Henry Cha, President of HealthCare Interactive, a healthcare technologist who specializes in delivering software as a service (SaaS) offerings that help companies better manage employee healthcare programs and related costs.
Todd C. Thompson is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the Financial Services & Human Capital line of business within Lockheed Martin Corporation.
Michael Clark, Vice President of Development for Pacific Intermedia, a professional services and technology development organization serving the financial, healthcare, manufacturing and government markets.\
The webcast will be moderated by Lane Cooper, Editorial Director of the HPM Institute.
New Webcast: Public Sector Strategies for Reducing Healthcare Costs While Improving Outcomes
New Webcast Discusses the Critical Role of Technology-Enabled Collaboration and Healthcare Performance Management
HPM Institute Executive Director George Pantos and Healthcare Interactive President Henry Cha hosted the second in a three-part series of Webcasts focused on cloud-based technology in the healthcare arena.
Featured panelists with extensive expertise and experience in healthcare policy across the public sector included:
Liddy Garcia-Bunuel of Healthy Howard, a community health plan for the uninsured in Howard County, MD
Gene Walker with HCI Federal, a provider of cloud-based healthcare technology solutions in the public sector
Alice Burton with Burton Policy, which helps state-level public and private sector clients navigate the opportunities and challenges of health reform implementation
The panel explored the role that technology-enabled collaboration and Healthcare Performance Management is already playing to reduce risks and expenditures while elevating the health and wellbeing of employees, dependents and retirees covered by federal, state and local plans. Key points tackled in the Webcast include:
The Affordable Care Act and its impact on the public sector
Key healthcare spending drivers in the public sector from federal to county level
The emergence of disruptive technologies (such as cloud computing) as a critical tool for managing healthcare operations
The role of Healthcare Performance Management in the public sector in controlling costs and improving outcomes
New Webcast: How Cloud Technology is Bending the Healthcare Cost Curve for Enterprises
Cloud computing is revolutionizing the way that private-sector interests are managing and delivering their healthcare benefits, according to several experts who spoke during a webcast hosted yesterday by the Healthcare Performance Management Institute.
"In the employee benefits arena, cloud computing is now more than a promise," said George Pantos, Executive Director of the HPM Institute. "It's helping create a new business model as companies abandon their own more expensive in-house platforms and turn to this new computing method in order to provide better care at lower cost."
Cindy LaQuatra, a senior consultant at Benefits Resource Group in Independence, Ohio, spoke at the webcast as well. "The days of managing your group health plan by making plan design changes and shifting health costs to employees are over," said LaQuatra. "New technology can help employers save money while still providing comprehensive benefit programs to employees. Firms manage liabilities and workers' compensation very well. They must be proactive and do the same with their health plans."
The webcast also surveyed audience members on how they use technology within their organizations to manage health costs. Fifty-five percent of participants believed that their firms used analytics to manage their health benefits before risks surfaced. Sixty percent stated that their companies were able to aggregate healthcare data from multiple sources to identify risk, reduce costs, and improve health outcomes.
LaQuatra pointed out that although many insurance carriers claim to utilize predictive modeling and health coaching, they have lower engagement rates with employees and limited reporting capabilities. "In my experience, employers working with trusted, expert third parties are far more effective at leveraging healthcare data to cut costs and improve outcomes."
Understanding "The Last Mile" Through HR Integration Podcast With Industry Specialist Henry Cha
Healthcare Interactive President Henry Cha Discusses the Growing Importance for Human Resources Departments to Become More Involved in Their Employee's Health
In this podcast, HPM Institute Executive Director George Pantos interviews Healthcare Interactive President Henry Cha about the need for a shift in the corporate human resource mission from a tactical to a strategic focus. With healthcare costs projected to continuously rise over the next decade, it’s more important than ever for Human Resource (HR) departments to be involved in the health of their employees. This shift is possible through by integrating Healthcare Performance Management (HPM) into the Human Resources environment.
Companies already use ERP and CRM software to control costs and manage the overall health of the company. By adding HPM tools into HR departments, Cha says HR can create “a management environment where the health plan and sponsors, typically the employers, are able to utilize healthcare data, healthcare analytics, a platform to engage the members and a continuous process of improvement capability for…healthier living and more productive lives.”
Cha points out that “corporations are having a hard time understanding or seeing real ROI out of just their health initiatives” pointing out that “data is truly separated from the KSAs – knowledge, skills and abilities – information and healthcare data. If you integrate that data…you create a stronger knowledge base…to combine information together to give you a better way to manage your employees.”
Today, we are not capturing that “last mile of data.” If HPM software is integrated with existing HR data, employees can be given the tools to be more engaged and have access to better care management, ultimately lowering the costs of healthcare instead of increasing deductibles or changing plan parameters. Finally, combining this data drives even higher performance and profitability, while promoting healthier employees.
Healthy Business Radio Podcast with Institute Executive Director George Pantos
HPM Institute Executive Director George Pantos appeared on the Healthy Business Radio Show on January 4, 2011 to discuss how employers are turning to technology to reduce health costs and improve employee health behavior.
The focus of the radio show broadcast weekly from Atlanta to the local and national business community is that a "healthy workforce is a competitive advantage."
Mr. Pantos discussed how healthcare performance management technology can improve C-level decision making to give employer plan sponsors control of soaring healthcare costs and provide high quality care for employees.
"A growing number of employers are embracing the same type of performance analysis used in other critical business processes--such as customer relationship management (CRM) and supply chain management--to the provision of health benefits," said Pantos. As an example, he pointed out that Cumulus Media, a media firm with 1,300 employees headquartered in Atlanta, has used the HPM business strategy successfully to project $4.1 million in healthcare savings in 2010.
Mr. Pantos was interviewed by Dr. David Rearick and Stephen Cherniak of Strategic Benefit Solutions, an Atlanta-based firm that broadcasts weekly on the Benefit Advisors Network (BAN)(www.healthybusinessradio.com). BAN is a network of 30 national brokers with a client membership of over 8,000,000 lives.
Wellness and Disease Management Podcast with Industry Specialist Judy Mueller
WellNet Interactive President, Judith Mueller Discusses How an Integrated Approach to Medical, Care and Disease Management Can Drive Engagement Rates to Over 50 Percent When Properly Managed and Incented
In this podcast, HPM Institute Executive Director George Pantos interviews Judith Mueller, President of WellNet Interactive, who points out that participation rates – the percentage of people covered in a policy that actively engage with a plan by following prescribed steps to improve life-style or effectively address health issues – is typically quite low in programs administered by traditional insurance companies.
“In a carrier-based disease-management program, these engagement rates can typically hover around the 5-10 percent mark,” she explains in her conversation with Pantos.
By contrast, she points out that when incentives and proper management structures are put in place, those engagement rates can reach 57 percent, with some organizations experiencing 89 percent participation with covered members of a plan.
“We have been able to demonstrate very clearly that good healthcare outcomes drive significant cost reductions. But the key to achieving these outcomes revolves around getting those covered by a plan to engage and participate effectively with wellness initiatives. It therefore follows that if you can elevate constructive participation in wellness programs, then organizations can achieve the elusive objective of bending back the healthcare cost curve,” says Mueller.
Through a series of strategies that involve the accurate and timely aggregation of plan member data, incentives to involve plan members in programs and a solid plan to proactively manage wellness initiatives, Mueller discusses how her organization has been able to beat nationally benchmarked participation rates.
“In so doing, we have been able to show that it is possible to not only stabilize…but actually reverse…the healthcare cost trends that many organizations face,” she says.
StrategyDriven Blog: Breaking Down Health Reform’s Grandfather Clause
In Managing Health Insurance Plans, we are joined by George Pantos, Executive Director of the Healthcare Performance Management Institute. George shares his thoughts on how companies can keep their current health plans in light of the recently passed healthcare legislation and under what circumstances they may wish to do so, including:
under what circumstances company leaders would want to keep their organization’s existing health insurance plans
what leaders must do to have their organization’s current health insurance plans grandfathered
what a Healthcare Performance Management program is and how it can help companies keep their current healthcare insurance plans
the costs and benefits associated with implementing a Healthcare Performance management program
why some executives may want to eliminate their organization’s health insurance program altogether
Employee Benefit Adviser: HPM Can Step in Where Health Reform Falls Short
August 25, 2010
The much discussed lack of cost containment in the new health reform law is just one factor that has employers nervous about losing their grandfathered status for existing health care plans. The Healthcare Performance Management Institute's George Pantos explains how HPM can come to the cost-saving rescue.
Click to listen to the podcast interview with George Pantos.
Health Business Blog: Podcast Interview with Healthcare Performance Management
June 30, 2010 David E. Williams of the Health business blog
The Healthcare Performance Management Institute is a new think tank dedicated to the use of technology and management principles to deliver more cost-effective health care benefits for employers. The idea is to use the same techniques in health care cost and quality management that the private sector successfully deploys in core business processes such as customer service, supply chain management and enterprise resource planning.
In this podcast interview, the Institute’s Executive Director George Pantos and board member Keith Lemer discuss their ambitions for the Institute. (Published by the Health Business Blog)
Business Strategies for Addressing Grandfather Plan Strategies
On June 14th the Health and Human Services Department issued its interim final rules which stated that if employers do not alter their benefit designs significantly -- or shift more costs to workers in 2011, then existing plans will not be subject to the immediate requirements of the landmark healthcare legislation that was passed this year.
Executive Leaders Radio Interviews with Two Advisory Board Members
Executive Leaders Radio interviews HPM Institute Board members Keith Lemer and Henry Cha, whose companies, WellNet Healthcare and Healthcare Interactive, both implement HPM strategies. Both share their personal and business experience with the audience.
Leveraging Technology & Transparency to Create Health Insurance Plan Savings
At M Financial Group's 2010 M Corporate Benefits Meeting held on May 10-12, Bill Lavis, Senior Vice President and Partner at Sitzmann Morris and Lavis and a member of the Institute Advisory Board, walks attendees through how one company is providing healthcare performance management principles, using proprietary technology, licensed nurse outreach and proactive advisory services, to his firm's clients.
WEBCAST: Decrease Healthcare Costs and Improve Quality Through HPM
During this interactive discussion we explore:
The current state of enterprise healthcare management
The costs and risks to which organizations are currently exposed
Alternative business strategies for addressing out-of-control cost trends
Key metrics and management tactics for achieving the twin objectives of reduced costs and improved outcomes.
Lane Cooper, Editorial Director of BizTechReports, moderates a panel chat with:
William “Bill” Lavis, Vice President and leader of Employee Benefits practice at Sitzmann Morris & Lavis (SML) since 1988. He is recognized as one of the nation’s leading experts in designing consumer driven health plans, creating alternative funding options and building cutting edge care management & cost control programs.
George Pantos, Executive Director of Healthcare Performance Management Institute, has served as Chief Counsel for the Self Insurance Institute of America (SIIA) and is a former partner in the national law firm Vedder Price of Chicago, Pantos co-founded and served as counsel to The ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC), a national coalition of 125 major employers concerned with ERISA benefits issues.
Henry Cha,President of Healthcare Interactive, is a healthcare technologist who specializes in delivering software as a service (SaaS) offerings that help companies better manage employee healthcare programs and related costs. Cha has employed predictive modeling and latent class modeling to identify risk parameters.
Healthcare Performance Management Institute's Executive Director, George Pantos, speaks with David Harlow about tools and strategies for employers to manage health care services and expenses
Health care costs are a perennial issue for employers and employees. There are a variety of approaches out there designed to improve health status and health outcomes and reduce costs at the same time. Proponents of a variety of approaches have been featured here on HealthBlawg in the past. I recently had the opportunity to speak with George Pantos, of the Healthcare Performance Management Institute, a brand-new organization on the scene, founded by a group of folks who have developed tools for managing these costs.
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