The Alliance: Inaugural Health Transformation Awards honor SMARTCare, Diane Kiehl and QualityPath doctors and hospitals

The Alliance presented its inaugural Health Transformation Awards at its annual seminar today at the Monona Terrace to honor people and organizations that have made significant contributions to moving health care forward.

Award recipients are:

Dianne Kiehl, Executive Director, The Business Health Care Group (BHCG), Milwaukee, Wis. Kiehl became the first executive director of the Business Health Care Group in Milwaukee in 2004. During her tenure, BHCG has grown from 14 companies to more than 1,100 companies. The Health Transformation Award honors her extraordinary leadership among employers related to health benefits. Kiehl has announced plans to retire.
QualityPath Designated Hospitals, including St. Mary’s Hospital, Madison, Wis.; St. Clare Hospital, Baraboo, Wis.; Meriter Hospital, Madison, Wis.; Monroe Clinic, Monroe, Wis.; and Rockford Memorial Hospital, Rockford, Ill. Hospitals who achieved designation in the program’s first year made a commitment to high-value care with new approaches such as bundled payments and 90-day warranties. The award honors the hospitals’ work in exploring new methods to delivering and paying for care.

QualityPath Designated Doctors, including Dr. Vijay Kantamneni, St. Mary’s Hospital; Dr. Christopher Dale, St. Clare Hospital; Dr. James Bowers, Meriter Hospital; Dr. Lance Sathoff, Monroe Clinic; and Dr. Mark Barba and Dr. Michael Chmell, Rockford Memorial Hospital. QualityPath is designed to recognize the pivotal role that doctors play in determining patient outcomes. For that reason, designated hospitals only qualify to provide QualityPath procedures when working with designated doctors. Doctors qualify for QualityPath based on their ability to meet evidence-based measures of the quality of care. And both doctors and hospitals, when working together, must agree to adopt processes that lead to better care for patients. The award honors these doctors’ commitment to exploring new methods to delivering and paying for care.

Three Wisconsin doctors who helped develop the groundbreaking SMARTCare program to improve care for heart patients: Dr. Thomas Lewandowski, a cardiologist in Appleton, Wis; Dr. Anthony DeFranco, a cardiologist in Milwaukee, Wis.; and Dr. Tim Bartholow, a family medicine physician who is the chief medical officer for WEA Trust in Madison, Wis., and was formerly the chief medical officer for the Wisconsin Medical Society. The award recognizes the physicians for improving the quality of care using a systematic, process-oriented approach that can be adapted and implemented by other organizations. The Wisconsin doctors worked with Florida doctors to develop SMARTCare, including the Florida Chapter of the American College of Cardiology (ACC), led by Dr. A. Allen Seals, president of the Florida Chapter ACC, and Dr. Juan M. Aranda Jr., immediate past president.

SMARTCare stands for Smarter Management and Resource Use for Today’s Complex Cardiac Care. The program is designed to improve care for patients who have chest pain due to heart disease. SMARTCare relies on decision support tools to help doctors and patients determine which non-emergent patients should have stress tests, stents and other procedures – and which should not. SMARTCare is now being tested in Wisconsin and Florida in a three-year pilot. When scaled nationally, SMARTCare is expected to reduce unnecessary cardiology procedures for affected patients by 10 to 30 percent.

The Alliance’s Health Transformation Awards were introduced by the Board of Directors as part of the not-for-profit cooperative’s 25^th anniversary celebration.

Dr. Otis Webb Brawley, chief medical and scientific officer of the American Cancer Society and author of “How We Do Harm,” shared patient stories and statistics that illustrate the need for a “rational” approach to health care. In Dr. Brawley’s definition, a “rational” system would stress prevention and health education; reduce waste; rely on the scientific method; and keep everyone involved in health care focused on what’s best for the patient.

The Alliance Annual Seminar features high-profile, thought-provoking national leaders who share their expertise on pressing health care issues. The event annually attracts an audience of roughly 300 people, including employers and health care providers as well as brokers, agents and other professionals who support employers that self-fund their health benefits.

The Alliance moves health care forward by controlling costs, improving quality, and engaging individuals in their health. Members include more than 240 self-funded employers and insurance trusts covering more than 100,000 individuals in Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa. The Alliance uses the purchasing power of cooperative members to negotiate with and provide access to an extensive network of doctors and hospitals paid to improve quality by performing better not doing more.

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Professional photos of award winners and Dr. Brawley are available here:

http://www.the-alliance.org/press_room/press_releases/

Profiles of QualityPath doctors and hospitals are available online at:

http://www.the-alliance.org/Find_a_Doctor/QualityPath_Designated_Hospital-and-Doctor_Pairings/