A Renewed Focus on Clinical Effectiveness

Hospitals and health systems are under siege, facing difficult challenges in economics and cost structure that are impacting their business models and bottom lines. While it’s tough to measure success based on clinical quality alone, SCP Health (formerly Schumacher Clinical Partners) believes there’s an opportunity for differentiation when leaders focus on clinical effectiveness.

For the last five years, Rich D’Amaro has led the behind-the-scenes clinical management company on a fast trajectory towards becoming the nation’s leader in unscheduled care. He recently spoke with Modern Healthcare Custom Media about this journey.
 

RD: At the end of the day that’s our product. Our product is not providing physicians to hospitals — that’s the vehicle through which we ensure the effectiveness of the treatment that we provide. That means removing the noise, reducing variation, being consistent in what we do, hitting our targets and satisfying the patient. Those are the goals we have established at the center of the company, and our goal is to drive it down to every practice. Being able to distribute that intellectual capital to our 7,500 providers who are working to improve practices is a core competency that we trumpet, protect and invest in.
 

RD: Initially, I think value-based care was really the driver. The bundled payment programs are at the heart of what clinical effectiveness is. That’s not just about our time with the patient, but also how effective the extended episode of care is. There’s a lot of talk about that, as we’re living in two worlds right now: fee-for-service and value-based care. It’s incumbent on us to be able to see through all of that and make sure that both reimbursement models are being optimized as we focus on output and effectiveness.
 

RD: It is similar to what many of our clients have done in transitioning from “XYZ Hospital” to “XYZ Health System.” Right now, most of our care is delivered in the four walls of the hospital, and that’s how the physician outsourcing industry started. However, we’re being asked to impact care after the hospital visit, often in the handoff to other consultants or to post-acute care. That’s more than just a clinical partner inside the hospital, because that transcends a venue. Our inside baseball is unscheduled care — that’s what emergency departments do. But that doesn’t all have to be done inside the ED, or even inside the hospital. We’re beginning to work outside of the hospital through joint ventures in virtual care and we’re starting to influence the post-acute space through our work in bundled payment programs.
 

RD: Our core competency is aggregating the intellectual capital of doctors, nurse practitioners and physician’s aides. When we serve as a Managed Service Organization, or an MSO, we infuse that site with clinical and business leadership to make that effective. We don’t have bricks-and-mortar, ancillary services and all the inpatient complexity of a hospital, so we are able to focus our expertise on the clinical aspects of an emergency department or an inpatient acute-care unit. We have about 40 clients that partner with our MSO division, and it seems to be a growing part of our business.
 

RD: First and foremost, what I’m most proud of is that our culture remains focused on clinical activity, outcomes and service. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the corporate side of healthcare, and we’ve tried to keep the focus of our company on providing care. As you know with all the distractions out there, it’s easy to begin thinking more about the business side than the clinical side. Through and through, we’re a clinical company.
 

To learn more about SCP Health, visit scp-health.com.