Number 1 Hospital-Based Specialty Pharmacy at Fairview Health Services and Number 1 Specialty Pharmacy Integrator, Shields Health Solutions, To Continue Co-Developing Pharmacy Services Benefiting Patients with Chronic Illness
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Shields Health Solutions, creator of specialty pharmacies for hospitals and health systems, today announced a new agreement with Fairview Health Services, a Minneapolis-based integrated health system, to co-develop care-related products and services for hospitals to better serve patients living with chronic illness. The agreement builds on five years of partnership co-developing products and services for hospital-based specialty pharmacies.
“Adding the depth offered by Shields Health Solutions to our co-development initiatives makes sense because our patient-first values align so seamlessly,” said Dave Fasching, Chief Financial Officer, Fairview Health Services Specialty Pharmacy. “Shields is a great business partner and they are even better people. Like our healers in the hospital system, Shields puts patient health above all. We are committed to doing a lot more in 2017 and beyond.”
Innovation in Hospital-Based Specialty Pharmacy
Placing a specialty pharmacy on site at Fairview Health Services and at other health systems has resulted in many population health and coordinated care improvements including:
- 58% reduction in ER visits for bone marrow transplant patients in one hospital system
- 41% reduction in readmissions for bone marrow transplant patients in one hospital system
- More than $1 million in financial aid secured for patient co-pays and prescription medicines
- Patient medication adherence rate of greater than 90%
- 99% “excellent” patient satisfaction ranking
- 97% favorable ranking among physicians
“Creating the best products for hospital-owned specialty pharmacies with partners like Fairview allows us take advances from one location and bring them to hospital systems across the country,” said Jack Shields, CEO, Shields Health Solutions. “This is the most efficient way of improving lives for patients. Hospital’s having their own specialty pharmacy program is the single biggest care model improvement I’ve seen for patients in my 30 years in healthcare. We look forward to accelerating the pace of innovation alongside Fairview to help bring the best healthcare in the country to people living with chronic illness.”
Creating the First Specialty Pharmacy Patient Telemetry Center™
Today, the sickest five percent of the population spends fifty times as much on healthcare per person as the healthiest majority of the population. Five years ago there was no quantifiable, cost-effective way to treat the sickest patients, who are often those with chronic illness. For example, if a hospital had 3,000 chronically ill patients scheduled for appointments in a given week, an effort was made to contact each patient before she or he arrived at the hospital. But that was not always possible.
Today there is a Shields Patient Telemetry Center™ capable of analyzing the needs of all 3,000 patients before they arrive for appointments. Analysis may show 185 patients require intensive intervention before or after hospital appointments. Screening for medication adherence counseling, drug interaction prevention and post surgical follow-up are just a few medical interventions that can be scheduled to keep a sub-set of those 185 patients healthy. Because chronic illnesses often involve more than prescriptions to maintain health, some other patients may receive financial aid support to afford medicines and co-pays, psychological counseling, or home education visits to teach home injections. All as a result of analysis performed in the Patient Telemetry Center.
In the end, all 3,000 patients can be contacted today, but all at the appropriate level of intervention. Technology like the Patient Telemetry Center helps the hospital system focus care resources where they are needed most, improving overall population health while cutting overall healthcare costs.
Shields continued, “We’re fortunate to co-develop and incubate ideas at places like UMass Memorial and the University of Minnesota. Both are leading academic medical centers and have a national reputation for leadership. Next year we’ve been challenged by James Hereford, the CEO of Fairview, to focus on innovation around oncology. And that’s really exciting because about half of all FDA pipeline formularies are in the oncology specialty area. Developing best practices will really make an impact on value-based care going forward.”
About Shields Health Solutions
Shields Health Solutions is a specialty pharmacy integrator and care provider, partnering with hospital leaders on every aspect of specialty pharmacy creation and management. The company provides the fastest, lowest risk model for Hospitals to create a hospital-owned specialty pharmacy business, eliminating risks associated with Limited Distribution Drug (LDD) contracts, payor contracts, pharmacy accreditations, infrastructure set up and more. Shields Health Solutions handles it all, whether hospital leaders want to build from scratch or add specialty capabilities to their existing pharmacy programs.
In 2012 Shields Health Solutions broke new ground by introducing the first turn-key, hospital-owned specialty pharmacy for a health system. The project included design and build of the pharmacy facility, pharmacy accreditations, pharmacy staffing, payor contracts, Limited Distribution Drug (LDD) contracts and technology infrastructure such as telecommunications and analytics dashboards. Today many of the most respected hospitals in the country, including UMass Memorial, Hartford Healthcare and Bay State Medical Center, are serving their chronically ill, complex patient populations using specialty pharmacy best practices developed collaboratively with Shields.
The breakthrough of Shields Specialty Pharmacy is based on 40 years of partnerships with 30 hospital systems, building Shields Dialysis Centers, Shields Advanced Imaging Centers (Shields MRI) and Shields Radiation Therapy Centers. What we are doing today with Specialty Pharmacy is once again bringing best practices into a new area of healthcare, returning patients to the center of the care model, while helping healthcare leaders deliver better care more efficiently. Today, Shields Health Solutions is one of the fastest growing companies in America. For more information about Shields Health Solutions, visit www.shieldshealthsolutions.com.
Contacts
Shields Health Solutions
John Fitzsimmons, 781-223-5833
jfitzsimmons@shieldsrx.com
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