Health value: a skilled workforce is needed

As regular readers know for sure, I am a tireless advocate of the health of the population and the systemic changes that will be necessary to achieve equitable, value-based health care in the United States. , disparities in access to care and unsustainable costs for individual citizens and governments. It also sharpened the focus on the new skills that healthcare professionals will need to manage the ongoing and inevitable transition from service fee models to value-based models.

Over the years, I have had the privilege of meeting and working with many national thought leaders and organizations that have promoted the value movement. Last year, I co-authored an article with Eric Weaver, DHA, on developing a workforce for value-based care. Weaver is the executive director of the newly launched Institute for the Advancement of Health Values, a non-profit member organization of health organizations that learns from peers and focuses on accelerating the transition to value-based care through competency-based workforce transformation.

The institute is housed at Western Governors University (WGU), an innovative non-profit online university specializing in competency-based education. As a member of the Institute’s Health Advisory Council, I took the opportunity to gain his perspective on where we are now - and where we are going in the near future.

Despite strong obstacles to value-based care, Weaver is optimistic about translating plans into action. “The difference between an obstacle and an opportunity is ‘attitude’ and we cannot allow the icy pace of transformation to discourage us from making a seismic change in the way we provide and fund health care in our country,” he says.

The institute’s origins go back to the VGU’s Responsible Care Learning Cooperation (ACLC) - the brainchild of two former high-ranking federal officials: former Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Livitt and former Center for Health Care and Services (CMS) Mark McClellan, MD, PhD . ACLC’s insights confirm the premise that peer learning and industry collaboration will be essential to developing robust “barrier” solutions - complex health care problems in the United States.

Taking the “opportunity”, the institute convened a wide range of health care leaders who think they value - from service providers, insurers and product manufacturers to regulators, academia and professional associations - to work together to create a “unique American (ie industry-led) solution”. which includes the involvement of communities, especially those who are underserved. ”While leaders share their understanding and experience of applying value-based care in the real world, their goal is to compare, learn from each other’s successes (and failures) and develop best practices based on on the values ​​they benefit patients, service providers and payers.Comprehensive knowledge of organizational competencies and care delivery capabilities that enable service providers to succeed in risk-bearing payment models is synthesized in the Health Value Atlas.

Why is this important today? CMS is the largest payer in the country. To support the transformation of the industry, the strategic goals of CMS call on all Medicare and Medicaid users to be in a relationship with care with responsibility for quality and total care costs (eg responsible care organization) by 2030.

Weaver notes that much of the value movement is laser-focused on pay, not care, with very little attention paid to workforce competencies. He is convinced that competence-based education and retraining and training of the workforce are key to the organization’s success in transitioning to value-based care. To this end, the institute works to improve knowledge and promote competencies in the healthcare industry through educational products, research and peer learning collaboration to accelerate industry readiness. “Health value is more than economy,” says Weaver. “We believe in a moral imperative for value-based care and, through our social influence, we are a multiplier of strength for the health of the population and health equality.

At the risk of advertising one of Jefferson’s competitors, I take off my hat at VGU, the home of the institute. For 25 years, they have been pioneers of competency-based, fully online diploma and certificate programs in a wide range of health disciplines. The student body now numbers about 129,000 (69% of whom belong to the underserved population), and their graduate nurses make up about 17% of the U.S. nursing workforce. By improving access to education - especially their certification programs - they have created a diverse, inclusive channel for a health workforce focused on the value of the future.