Texas Health Unveils Center for Population Health

Opening the research center is part of a strategic plan to move Texas Health Resources squarely into a leadership role in the transition from fee-based healthcare to a value-based reimbursement model, says CEO Douglas Hawthorne.

Texas Health Resources has opened a research center intended to establish best practices for population health strategies that are intended to shift the giant health system's business model from fee-for-service to a value-based model.

It named Tricia Nguyen, MD, to lead the new Population Health, Education & Innovation Center. The health system, one of the largest in the state and billing itself as the largest in its north Texas home area, has spent the past seven years trying to make a transition from sick care to a value-and population health enterprise, as have many other health systems dealing with the challenge of healthcare reform.

A press release announcing the center's creation says it will be the nexus for sharing best practices, disseminating information about innovative approaches, leading physician-directed population health initiatives and coordinating community-based well-being collaboration.

It's all part of a strategic plan to move Texas Health squarely into a leadership role in the transition from fee-based healthcare to a value-based reimbursement model, says CEO Douglas Hawthorne.

"We did this to be able to bring together the pieces that would allow us to convert thinking into execution. Rather than going from pillar to post to find pieces that would make our value case, we're organizing the pieces around innovation and improving the population's wellbeing," he says. "This will allow us to move more swiftly yet deliberately."

The Center is intended to remake incentives that push caregivers to provide specific interventions reimbursed as part of a care episode into incentives that favor prevention, well-being, and better management of chronic disease and post-acute care.

It will house Texas Health's research and medical education activities as well as technology initiatives for interdisciplinary clinical research, analytics, predictive modeling, data management and remote patient monitoring. Community health and faith-based outreach activities will also be coordinated through the Center.

One example of an initiative that will be coordinated by the Center is the recently launched Blue Zone Project with the city of Fort Worth. The Blue Zone Project aims to improve the overall well-being of the community by creating collaborative efforts involving local government agencies, businesses, nonprofit organizations, educational institutions and community-based organizations. The Blue Zone Project was launched in partnership with Healthways Inc., a provider of well-being improvement solutions with which Texas Health already has a 10-year cooperative contract. Texas Health funded the initial assessment of Fort Worth as a possible Blue Zone Project city.

"It's taking hold," Hawthorne says. "Fort Worth's mayor and city council have said 'bring it on,' and we think that will change the dynamic. It really is a whole evolution of changing mindsets about how we engage people earlier in life around staying healthy versus waiting for them to appear at the ED or front door."

A big part of that change in mindset, and indeed, the entire organization's business model, involves working closely with physicians who "get it," Hawthorne says. "This is not just about diagnosis and treatment, but it's also about prevention and helping people avoid the ICU or ED."

Before joining Texas Health, Nguyen was with Banner Health, another large integrated delivery system in Phoenix, where she was involved in accountable care organization strategies and clinical integration and population health work across the physician network.

"We see this as something that will allow for faster execution in bringing resources together in single place rather than in a multitude," Hawthorne says. "There's risk in doing something like this, you cut new ice, and you begin to take on something that doesn't have a model. But we think this will be a model for others rather than something that struggles."