An alliance between two health systems in the Philadelphia area is expected to generate several opportunities for joint clinical programs and population health initiatives.
Trinity Health and University of Pennsylvania Health System have forged an alliance that is designed to form clinical joint ventures and boost population health.
"We view this as a long-term commitment and relationship for our respective institutions. It's not something we are going to do for a year and back away from it," says James Woodward, president and CEO of St. Mary Medical Center, a 371-bed Trinity Health hospital in Langhorne, Pennsylvania.
The Trinity hospitals in the mid-Atlantic division, including Mercy Health System of Southeastern Pennsylvania, and the University of Pennsylvania medical center are well-suited partners, he says. "There is a substantial benefit to having a complementary relationship. We obtain services from a tertiary and quaternary partner that provides services we do not have, or helps us round out some services."
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The health systems signed an agreement to form the alliance, outlining the governance structure, which reflects the importance of joint clinical programming:
- One senior executive each from Trinity and Penn serve as co-leaders of the alliance.
- A 12-member governance council has equal representation from Trinity and Penn, with broad responsibilities such as ensuring the alliance agreement is being met and honored.
- Clinical care committees will help identify joint venture opportunities and oversee clinical programming collaborations. The membership of clinical care committees will include physicians, nurses, and administrative staff.
Clinical care committees will play a key hands-on role in the alliance, Woodward says. "They will work together to do an assessment of needs, how they are going to work together, what services will be provided, and how we would collaborate together at the community level with an academic medical center."
Clinical joint ventures
Oncology is one of the alliance's prime targets for joint clinical programs, and St. Mary is starting a joint program for gynecologic oncology with Penn-owned Princeton Health in New Jersey.
St. Mary lacks the patient volume to support a gynecologic oncology service, which requires at least two clinicians, Woodward says.
"Princeton is in exactly the same boat. Together with Penn, we are working with Princeton to recruit two GYN oncologists—one for Princeton and one for St. Mary who would be based at our respective institutions. They would be able to cross-cover each other," he says.
St. Mary has targeted several other joint clinical programs for the alliance:
- St. Mary and Penn are planning to increase ambulatory services, including St. Mary moving some employed physicians and community-based services off its main campus. "The opportunities are to work collaboratively—potentially with joint programming for ambulatory services in various areas of Bucks County," Woodward says.
- St. Mary is hoping to add behavioral health and substance abuse treatment services through the alliance, including inpatient treatment and intensive day treatment.
- St. Mary plans to add physician support to its thoracic oncology team. "This would work both in our cardiovascular service line and in our oncology service line," he says.
- A joint heart failure program is on the drawing board as well.
Population health prep work
The alliance has not announced plans for joint population health initiatives, but discussions have begun, Woodward says.
"With a bigger footprint, we are exploring together how we can leverage the population health tools that exist within Trinity Health and apply them in a combined academic and community-based program that benefits our communities from a value perspective," he says.
Population health initiatives that have been discussed so far include optimizing diabetes care and adopting population health best practices from Trinity and Penn accountable care organizations.
Metrics to assess the alliance's performance are also a work in progress, he says. Most of the quality metrics will be selected and developed at the clinical care committee level.
"Each of the clinical care committees will be developing a mini strategic plan for what they hope to accomplish," Woodward says.
In addition to clinical program metrics, the alliance will track broader metrics for finance and population health, Woodward says. "Our metrics will include financial metrics to examine whether the relationship is what we hoped it would be financially for both sides."
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Healthcare value will be a component in the alliance's measure of population health performance, he says. "Can we clearly demonstrate that we have been able to improve quality and access of care, while also reducing the overall cost of care?"
Christopher Cheney is the CMO editor at HealthLeaders.