GE Healthcare, Mission Health Launch Outcomes-Based Innovation Collaboration

Mission Health and GE Healthcare have announced a novel, 10-year outcomes-based agreement that will help drive significant value for patients, Mission Health, GE and health systems nationwide. As a non-academic, regional integrated health system that includes a 730 bed, high-volume, high-acuity tertiary-quaternary hospital, Mission is looking to balance clinical quality with significant cost savings and efficiency across their system—the same challenge facing nearly all healthcare systems nationwide.

“This is an innovative, collaborative, outcomes-driven relationship focused on developing new, transformational ways of caring for patients at Mission Health and nationwide,” said Ronald A. Paulus, M.D., president and CEO of Mission Health. “The challenges we face at Mission are like so many health systems across the nation. Our goal is to improve our margin, drive system-wide efficiency and deliver an exceptional, transparent experience for every patient, family, and team member. The solutions that we develop and cost savings we achieve with GE will be scalable and applicable to other similar healthcare systems. This is truly exciting for Mission and the industry.”

Mission Health and GE Healthcare will work in partnership to solve the system’s most complex challenges, delivering more than $40 million in savings for Mission Health over the course of the relationship:

• First-of-its-kind, co-created innovation collaboration: Mission Health and GE Healthcare will co-develop, pilot and deploy transformational healthcare solutions focused initially on two areas: optimizing imaging experience and utilization and smoothing patient care transitions.
  
      o Imaging: The focus will be on supporting a patient’s ability to make informed choices based upon key variables such as comparative costs and wait times while providing rapid results. From the provider perspective, the focus will be on streamlining the complex process of getting patients to the right imaging modality, at the right time, in the right place across the system while balancing capacity and availability.
      o Care Transitions: The approach will leverage predictive modelling and other analytics to ensure that the patient receives the right care in the right setting with the right technology to maximize patient outcomes, experience and minimize costs.

“To make this level of partnership possible, it takes two organizations to think both differently and collaboratively,” said John Flannery, president and CEO of GE Healthcare. “We are honored to work with Mission Health and strongly believe that this strategic, outcomes-based agreement will ensure alignment and focus on shared priorities. We are passionate about delivering on our commitment while helping to enhance clinical quality, patient experience and operational efficiency.”

By leveraging GE’s deep technology, consulting, software, IT and workflow expertise and Mission’s in-depth clinical experience and “real world learning laboratory”, Mission and GE Healthcare will help shape the next generation of technology, tools, and processes to support healthcare’s transformation. This is less about one product or capability and more broadly aligned around how technology and services can work together to deliver outcomes for patients. Many of the findings and solutions developed through this collaboration can be transferred and used by systems nationwide.¹

Key areas of operational focus within mission health include:

• Radiology optimization: Imaging is a core component of many service lines and care plans—yet in most organizations it is optimized or structured to function as a central backbone of care delivery. A systematic focus on imaging/radiology drives system-wide efficiency by improving speed to diagnosis, increasing asset utilization, reducing unnecessary retakes, reducing overall care costs, and reducing waiting time for patients and clinicians system-wide. As care shifts to a value-based model, radiology must transform from a simple revenue or cost center to one that actively supports risk-based care models and helps Mission achieve its goal of providing same day, cost-effective care.
• System-wide bedside monitoring transformation: Mission Health is replacing its bedside monitoring and telemetry at all seven facilities to support rapidly increasing inpatient acuity, reduce internal and cross-facility transfers, and provide seamless care regardless of site. The new monitoring platform will ensure that all equipment is interconnected and that data is readily available to the clinician in the moments that matter most. By providing immediate access to critical data, especially in areas like the emergency department, caregivers can improve patient safety and speed to diagnosis and reduce patient wait times, reduce false positives, and optimize patient placement keeping patients close to home as much as possible.
• Radiology and biomedical services with asset optimization: GE Healthcare will assume responsibility for servicing diagnostic and biomedical equipment at Mission Health. This will drive standardization, consistency and overall increased reliability and quality of care.

This relationship is the culmination of a significant investment by GE Healthcare Partners, the management consulting arm of GE Healthcare. GE Healthcare Partners have built capabilities to advise and execute services that connect GE’s products to clients like Mission Health to improve quality, reduce cost, and increase access. GE Healthcare Partners offers broad advisor services, analytics, and predictive modeling capabilities, and has expertise implementing outcomes across the healthcare continuum.

Based in Asheville, N.C., Mission Health is the state’s sixth-largest health system and was recognized as one of the nation’s Top 15 Health Systems from 2012 through 2015 by Truven Health Analytics, formerly Thomson Reuters, becoming the only health system in North Carolina to achieve this recognition. Mission Health operates six hospitals, numerous outpatient and surgery centers, post-acute care provider CarePartners, long-term acute care provider Asheville Specialty Hospital, and the region’s only dedicated Level II trauma center. 

GE Healthcare provides medical technologies and services to meet the demand for increased access, enhanced quality and more affordable healthcare around the world. The company develops and provides medical imaging, software and IT, patient monitoring, diagnostics, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies and services to customers.

Reference:
1. Mission Health is the only tertiary-quaternary healthcare provider in western North Carolina, has been named a Top 15 Health System (Truven Health Analytics) in four of the past five years and recently had the lowest readmission rate of any general acute care hospital in the nation (Modern Healthcare). The health system and its leaders already have developed several solutions that are being used and distributed nationwide.