In spring 2021, more than 1,200 healthcare leaders will gather in Washington, DC, to address critical health care issues at the 17th Annual World Health Care Congress (WHCC21). The WHCC agenda keeps care delivery and payment transformation front and center by sharing strategic initiatives, results, and steps to overcome access and affordability issues while delivering high-value care.

Value-based care models are becoming increasingly important for health systems. Implemented well, they can improve system economics, enhance care quality and outcomes, and strengthen physician alignment. Value-based care (VBC) is a form of reimbursement that ties payments for care delivery to the quality of care provided and rewards providers for efficiency and effectiveness. This form of reimbursement has emerged as an alternative and potential replacement for fee-for-service (FFS) reimbursement, which pays providers retrospectively for services delivered based on bill charges or annual fee schedules.

Value-Based Care Workforce Performance Gaps

The Health Evolution Forum is a peer-to-peer collaboration among leaders across healthcare sectors focused on driving near-term impact at a critical juncture for healthcare.

The forum consists of more than 180 fellows that will participate in three roundtables—New Models of Care Delivery, Next Generation IT in Health Care, and Community Health and Advancing Health Equity—that will leverage fellows’ deep expertise to accelerate American healthcare’s transformation into a more equitable and effective marketplace amid the COVID-19 pandemic, severe economic challenges, and the health disparities highlighted by them. The Health Evolution Forum features CEO collaboration for industry-wide change and membership is by invitation only.

On September 16, 2020, the Forum published “Why CEOs Should Leverage Value-Based Payments to Increase Resilience,” the first article in a three-part series focused on actions CEOs can lead to advance new models of care delivery by leveraging alternative payments to increase value and resilience. The article mentioned that to address both pre- and post-pandemic issues, the Forum, which consists of nearly 200 provider, payer, and life sciences CEOs, identified these areas of focus critical to advancing new models of care delivery:

• Leveraging value-based payments to increase health care value and resilience

• Reinventing primary care and preventative care models

• Advancing innovative home-based chronic care models

• Fee for service is inhibiting innovative care models

The last item, fee for service, is inhibiting innovative new models of care delivery, and without payment incentives structured to support transformation in the broader health care system, it will be difficult to drive real change.

“It’s not easy for a traditional fee-for-service organization to actually partake in risk-based arrangements and execute against them,” said Gaurov Dayal, president, new markets and chief growth officer, ChenMed, and a forum fellow. Last year at the 16th Annual World Health Care Congress in Washington, DC, a WHCC TV Interview with Dayal shared insights on the HHS new payment models and ChenMed’s value-based care model.

In a preliminary survey, participants identified these barriers in deriving more revenue from value-based arrangements:

• Difficulty entering and managing different VBP contracts across various partner entities: 76 percent

• Changing the culture from FFS to a VBP mindset: 52 percent

• Significant infrastructure or data redesign required: 40 percent

• Lack of clarity on how to implement VBP models: 20 percent

• Insufficient funds to invest in the transition to VBP models: 16 percent

Health Systems Workforce Management and Development for Value-Based Care

To address these performance gaps, a comprehensive, sustainable healthcare workforce management strategy for value-based care involves modernizing recruiting, relearning for value based care, using scheduling analytics, and talent management initiatives to increase engagement and belonging.

Modernizing the Recruitment Process: Healthcare workforce management optimization starts with the recruiting process. Ensuring talent acquisition specialists and human resource staff are equipped with strategies to attract high-quality candidates is key to filling open positions. Similarly, filling up the HR inbox can be a problem for many organizations in a tight job market. Almost one-third of hospital C-suite executives, administrators, and human resources leaders said in March 2018 that their organization cannot find enough candidates to fill open positions, according to a survey by staffing firm Leaders for Today. Even when candidates for job openings were available, a quarter of organizations said that the job seekers did not measure up to quality standards.

Relearning for Value-Based Care: In December 2018, Gabriela Ammatuna, formerly of the ATD healthcare community of practice, offered assistance to healthcare professionals transitioning from fee-based service care models to value-based care with educational information to support change with the ATD podcast episode Relearning for Value-Based Care.

The 2019 ATD Research State of Healthcare Training whitepaper (hereafter known as the study) shares findings from a survey of organizations that provide healthcare services in the United States. The study examined how organizations are preparing for the switch to value-based care. About a quarter of organizations had already switched to value-based care, while 26 percent were either in the process of switching or planning to switch.

Using Analytics to Optimize Scheduling: Efficient scheduling is critical for healthcare organizations looking to reduce labor costs and improve care quality. Whether an organization has a dozen employees or a hundred thousand staff members, creating workable schedules is a significant challenge. Department leaders and human resources must balance paid time off, no shows, and personal schedules while staffing each department for its daily needs. Legacy healthcare workforce management and schedule platforms exacerbate scheduling problems, but upgrades to existing healthcare workforce management systems have not been a priority for hospitals and health systems, explains Michael Gretczko, strategic growth partner leader of Deloitte Consulting.

Talent Initiatives to Lower Turnover and Increase Engagement and Belonging: ATD healthcare community member Niranjani Chidamber Papavaritis shared some of ATD’s exciting updates for healthcare. In tandem with the organization’s new capability model, ATD has introduced a fresh brand and model for healthcare content, ATD TRIAGE (Training Resources, Ideas, and Analysis Guided by healthcare Experts). ATD Triage includes:

• Value-Based Care (including such areas as interpersonal skill building, EQ, and patient engagement): Resources that help practitioners define and evaluate value for their practice or health system as well as the individuals they serve and engage with to deliver care.

• Change Management: As an ever-shifting industry, healthcare employees need to be a jack-of-all trades. Keeping pace with the constant shifts in demands, trends, technology, and expectations is vital.

• Digital Transformation: Information about technological advances within the healthcare industry, including shifts to electronic medical records and electronic health records (EMRs/EHRs), virtual appointments, artificial intelligence, virtual simulations, and everything digital.

Talent initiatives also need to focus on elevating employee engagement. ATD author Jill Christensen describes the leadership traits that drive employee engagement and the elements of a successful value-based care workforce: “When healthcare employees are engaged in their work, patient outcomes are likely to improve . . . It's essential for leaders in healthcare organizations to pay attention to how their employees feel about their work.”

“Employee Engagement in Healthcare” makes a case for employee engagement and provides a road map for assessing and improving engagement.

Finally, talent has a key role in fostering inclusion and belonging. For instance, initiatives to promote belonging for women and underrepresented physicians and nonclinical employees are essential for the patient-centered medical home model.

A Deeper Dive: Value-Based Care Explained

Change your understanding of value-based care to optimize workforce management. Download Changing US Healthcare to learn more. Whether you’re a healthcare talent management leader, talent development professional, doctor, or patient, the idea of value-based healthcare is an appealing one, which explains why the approach is gaining traction across the United States.

In this free e-book, you'll get a better understanding of this care model, including:

• Patient-centered medical home (PCMH)—a model that puts patients at the forefront of care. PCMHs build better relationships between patients and their clinical care teams.

• Accountable care organizations and payment models

Fill out the form to download your copy today.

ATD 2021: It Starts With Us

The ATD International Conference and Exposition (ATD 2021) is scheduled to be held in September 2021 in Los Angeles, California. The ATD 2021 tagline, It Starts With Us, was selected before the pandemic, but it rings truer now more than ever. Collaboration and learning among healthcare workforce management leaders to create more innovative value-based care solutions for the future is on the ATD 2021 agenda. Plans are underway for the ATD 2021 healthcare experience schedule of events with details provided later in 2020. ATD will provide more information on these opportunities in the coming weeks.