There are two deep cleaning seasons in our household.
Spring and fall.
Fall cleaning includes the neighborhood kids closet rotation (I haven’t had to buy school khakis in three years!), washing windows, and raking leaves… lots and lots of raking leaves.
A good fresh clean house, closets and yard always makes us feel good, reset and ready for the change of seasons ahead.
One other area where many of us have been searching for a refresh is on the regulatory front.
We hear the “buzzwords” person-centeredness, culture change, data transparency and health equity, yet struggle to appreciate how these translate into truly purposeful shifts in the industry.
Then like magic, dropping into our inboxes today an updated white paper from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMS Innovation Center).
What is CMMI, you ask?
The CMS Innovation Center was established in 2010 as part of the Affordable Care Act with the goal of transitioning the health system to value-based care by developing, testing and evaluating new payment and service delivery models in Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
In establishing the CMS Innovation Center, Congress recognized the need for innovations in payment and care delivery that addressed the two most pressing problems facing the U.S. health system at the time — lower than acceptable quality of care and ever increasing spending that was (and continues to be) a growing burden on households, states, and the federal government.
Some stats:
- In the last decade, the CMS Innovation Center has launched more than 50 model tests.
- From 2018-2020, Innovation Center models have reached nearly 28 million patients and over 528,000 health care providers and plans.
These models have generated important lessons about how to transition the U.S. health system to value-based care.
Models have been launched in advanced primary care, episode-based care, accountable care, state-based transformation efforts, and for specific populations, such as Medicare
CMMI just released a white paper detailing the vision for the Center over the next 10 years titled, “Driving Health System Transformation – A Strategy for the CMS Innovation Center’s Second Decade.”
Refresh.
The goal of this bold, new strategy is to achieve equitable outcomes through high-quality, affordable, person-centered care, carried out through five strategic objectives: Drive Accountable Care, Advance Health Equity, Support Innovation, Address Affordability, and Partner to Achieve System Transformation.
These strategic objectives will guide the CMS Innovation Center’s models and priorities, and progress for each objective will be measured periodically to assess the CMS Innovation Center’s work and impact.
I don’t want to spoil the read for you so hope you will take time to take in the comprehensive 32-page document, which outlines recent “lessons learned,” “issues and challenges” and “next steps.”
Share the information with your interdisciplinary team and consider how we can all implement small changes to facilitate success in beneficiary and provider goals for accountable care, health equity, care innovations, affordability and health system transformation.
The crisp air of fall mornings is among us.
Time for a refresh, one that will leave those who engage in the reading of their most recent strategy saying to ourselves… oh me, oh my, thank goodness for CMMI.
For additional information about the strategy, visit: https://innovation.cms.gov/strategic-direction.
Renee Kinder, MS, CCC-SLP, RAC-CT, is Executive Vice President of Clinical Services for Broad River Rehab and a 2019 APEX Award of Excellence winner in the Writing–Regular Departments & Columns category. Additionally, she serves as Gerontology Professional Development Manager for the American Speech Language Hearing Association’s (ASHA) gerontology special interest group, is a member of the University of Kentucky College of Medicine community faculty and is an advisor to the American Medical Association’s Current Procedural Terminology CPT® Editorial Panel.
The opinions expressed in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News guest submissions are the author’s and are not necessarily those of McKnight’s Long-Term Care News or its editors.
