View From the C-Suite: Andy Grimm, CEO of Northeast Missouri Health Council
// By Sheryl S. Jackson //
A newly formed alliance of three Federally Qualified Health Centers provides an example of how shared expertise and pooled resources are laying the groundwork for value-based care, with the ultimate goal of driving better outcomes and lower costs in Medicaid managed care contracts.
One of the keys to success in preparation for value-based health reimbursement models is the use of technology to identify opportunities to close gaps in service, improve cost-effectiveness of treatments, improve outcomes, and enhance preventive care services.
In Missouri, three Federally Qualified Health Centers serving more than 53 counties and 107,000 patients in mostly rural areas, formed an alliance — CHC Strategies — to pool their IT staff, data, and hardware to better position themselves for value-based reimbursement.
All three CHCs — Northeast Missouri Health Council, Community Health Center of Central Missouri, and Jordan Valley Community Health Center — are routinely recognized for quality and performance at both the state and national level. CHC Strategies has aggregated data from the three Community Health Centers (CHCs) to provide a holistic view of clinical, payment, and outcome data for the alliance’s entire population.
Andy Grimm, CEO of Northeast Missouri Health Council
At the same time, each CHC maintains its own database with patient- and payor-specific information to support targeted programs and initiatives for its population.
“We realized the importance of sharing costs, staff, and expertise to manage clinical and payor data, but we wanted to maintain control of our own data,” explains CHC Strategies’ Andy Grimm, CEO of Northeast Missouri Health Council, one of the three alliance members and a four-time consecutive National Quality Award winner. “Each CHC still has its own IT person to handle day-to-day operations.”
The advantages of three CHCs working together are numerous, points out Grimm.