The Iowa Clinic (TIC) recently visited Drake University and presented a $75,000 shared savings check to the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. The payment is the result of a new partnership that has led to improved patient care and increased savings to patients and the health care system. This unique collaboration between the two entities is an example of the increasing shift towards innovative value- and quality-based reimbursement models that is becoming more prevalent in health care.
The partnership places a Drake faculty member, Michael Daly, Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice, who provides clinical informatics services to the internal medicine clinic located in West Des Moines, Iowa. Dr. Daly works closely with the data analytics personnel from TIC to analyze queries of large datasets. From that analysis, he is able to determine the most effective interventions which not only improve quality of care, but also reduce medication-related costs. Dr. Daly and his fourth-year clinical rotation pharmacy students have focused their efforts in the areas of asthma, diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia. Along with Dr. Christi Taylor, Chief Quality Officer of The Iowa Clinic, Dr. Daly and his students routinely meet with internal medicine, family medicine and various specialty providers, educating them on cost effective prescribing practices. “I think this rotation has opened the eyes of the students to how informatics can shape and influence value-based healthcare, and to the students’ credit, they have done a consistently terrific job of presenting information to the providers in a manner that is professional and impactful.” said Dr. Daly.
Drake entered the agreement with TIC in January 2016 under a risk-sharing component. While this meant that Drake would share in the benefits of increased reimbursements that TIC may receive, it also meant Drake would share some of the costs if reimbursements did not achieve certain benchmarks. Those benchmarks were exceeded as Dr. Daly and the pharmacy informatics team saved over $630,000 of actual and projected medication-related expenses through the first 2 years of the collaboration between TIC and Drake. Ed Brown, CEO of The Iowa Clinic, notes “Our collaboration with the Drake Pharmacy Team, Dr. Daly, and his students has been a very valuable addition to the high quality, low cost care we provide to our patients. They provide great benefit to both patients and providers.”
“We appreciate TIC’s foresight in understanding the value that a pharmacist can provide in the area of clinical informatics.” said Dean Renae Chesnut. “This new model of collaboration benefits all stakeholders, and we look forward to the future impact that partnerships like this will have on patient care while minimizing health care costs.”