“Our joint goal is to enhance the quality of patient care while decreasing overall healthcare costs by leveraging each organization's strengths to accomplish these objectives,” Dr. Grace Terrell, CEO of Cornerstone Health Care, said in a news release.
Teams from both organizations will jointly analyze population health data within the next 60 days as they work to develop a new set of relationships, clinical protocols and contracts to be established over the next six months, said Paula Faria, assistant VP of media relations at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
“It is crucial in this challenging healthcare environment for multiple healthcare providers to join together and assume accountability for managing and improving healthcare,” Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center CEO Dr. John McConnell said in the release. “Through better care coordination, we plan to provide more integrated care with fewer duplicated services, increased patient access to support services, and lower total healthcare costs.”
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is the academic medical center affiliated with Wake Forest University, and also includes a network of community hospitals, physician practices, outpatient services and other medical facilities. Cornerstone Health Care has more than 90 locations and more than 375 physicians and health professionals across central North Carolina. It was selected in July 2012 to participate in Medicare's Shared Savings Program for ACOs.
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