Academic medical centers face some unique challenges and opportunities when it comes to implementing new strategies and competencies to prepare for the population health environment, according to a Q&A with Andrew Ziskind, MD, managing director for Huron Healthcare.
Huron Healthcare is a provider of performance improvement and clinical transformation solutions for hospitals and health systems, including academic medical centers.
Despite the rapidly changing environment, Dr. Ziskind predicts academic medical centers will be able to adapt.
"Fortunately, [academic medical centers] are already experts at innovation and have begun to create and implement new care delivery models to address population health," said Dr, Ziskind.
Here are some of the challenges and opportunities of academic medical centers.
Challenges
1. Many academic medical centers have inadequate primary care capacity and geographic coverage, making managing patient outcomes across a population difficult.
2. Academic medical centers, like other hospitals, must operate successfully under fee‑for‑service model while transitioning to value‑based models, which can pose a significant challenge.
3. It's not uncommon for an academic medical center to have an individually focused physician culture, where clinicians have traditionally had great independence, but success under value-based models requires a shift to a team-based approach focused on alignment between physicians and the hospital.
Opportunities
4. To manage population health successfully, a hospital needs clinical expertise across the full continuum of care. Academic medical centers have just that: a broad range of clinicians with skills and capabilities that span the spectrum of medical science.
5. Most academic medical centers have a large employee base, allowing them to test innovative programs and develop best practices regarding population health and risk sharing on their own population first.
6. Academic medical centers that develop physician leaders foster engagement supported by physician-led governance. This engagement will position the medical centers for success in the population health environment.