This FierceHealthcare piece looks at the case for earning clinical-integration accreditation, taking Phoenix Children’s Hospital and its Phoenix Children’s Care Network (PCCN) as a case study.
PCCN became the first U.S. pediatric network to earn URAC accreditation as a clinically integrated network. URAC is a nonprofit organization that develops evidence-based measures and standards through inclusive engagement. This PCCN accreditation signifies a commitment to better care, processes and patient outcomes as well as cost savings for patients, their families and the wider community.
The Fierce piece reports:
“PCCN’s first order of business was to develop one of the nation’s first pediatric-dedicated clinically integrated organizations (CIO). The PCCN pediatric CIO is rooted in the development of a robust quality-improvement program with accountability among independent physicians and the connected health system. It rewards and integrates physician members around a common commitment to quality measures based on scientific evidence and cost improvement.”
“In just a few short years, the PCCN model has grown to be Arizona’s largest children’s care coordination network and one of the nation’s premier pediatric CIOs.”
URAC’s basic clinical-integration accreditation standards are, as paraphrased by Fierce, are:
- “A governing structure that provides compliance and oversight.
- “Top-down organizational alignment that ensures business arrangements are patient-centric and structured around improving outcomes, quality and costs.
- “Care coordination built around a population health mindset.
- “An integrated IT infrastructure that enables information exchange and data aggregation.
To read more, please hit this link.
