Value-Based Care

Value-based care – three words that are changing health care. Three words that put you at the center of everything your doctor does. In short, value based care is getting you healthy, keeping you healthy and lowering health care costs.

We exist as an organization to improve the health of communities.  We can do this best when we prevent disease from ever occurring, or identifying and treating it in the earliest possible stages.  Our goal is to have people healthy, independent, and living at home and taking care of themselves.  As a health care system, we are working to retool the way we deliver care to patients and drive to these outcomes.  That's value-based care.

While some health systems are just now moving in this direction, CHI Health has been focused on building value based care for the last 10 years. CHI Health Immanuel President Ann Schumacher sees it in action every day.

“For the patient you can count on us. Your experience is going to be better, your outcomes are going to be better, and it’s going to be done with less cost and that’s value,” said Schumacher.

So where does the value begin? It starts with how medicine is practiced. For example, if you need surgery at a CHI Health hospital, a medical team goes to work assessing your lifestyle, identifying health risks and helping you change them before you ever enter the operating room .

Ann Schumacher, President, CHI Health Immanuel -  “If a patient is carrying extra weight and we can help them lose that weight prior to surgery, they are going to do better - their outcomes are going to be better. May be they need to quit smoking. We have an entire team working for you. None of that is paid for today but it’s the right thing to do,” said Schumacher.

Here’s another example - joint replacement patients find value by doing things differently.

“We can, by taking best practices, rehabilitate a patient who’s had a knee replacement in one less session which reduces costs because patients pay per session. We are in the top 10 percent of country as far as outcomes,” said Schumacher.

Cutting costs without cutting quality is at the heart of value based care it’s also what consumers and employers want. That’s why some of Omaha’s largest companies are partnering with CHI Health to help build a healthier workforce.

“We’ve had employees who’ve been on insulin for 30 years. With a multi-disciplinary approach we can have all of the need for insulin eliminated in 3 months. That’s a huge transformation in someone’s life. And if we can do that with one employee, imagine what we can do with an entire company’s team,” said Melanie Peltz, Wellness Director for CHI Health.

Providing the right care right at the right time in the right place is value base care. So when you wake up sick in the middle of the night, instead of spending thousands of dollars in an emergency room, you can reach a provider by phone or computer through virtual care. You get help managing chronic conditions like diabetes with a nurse navigator and when you go home from the hospital after surgery paramedics will pay you a visit to make sure you are doing ok. That’s the value in value based care.

“Why wait until someone has a cancer diagnosis if we can provide screening in community. Why wait until a child is in crisis - if we can go into schools with therapists. If we can wrap educators around patients with diabetes and help manage care better why wouldn’t we? We want to keep people healthy so they can reach their dreams and goals, said Schumacher.

At CHI Health value base care is more than three little words it’s what we do everyday – delivering better care that saves lives and money.