A Coalition of the Willing (2017)

With just 5% of patients in the United States accounting for approximately 50% of the total cost of care, health care organizations are struggling to blunt the trend. Many are waiting and watching to see what healthcare reform brings. Others began their efforts a decade ago and continue to boldly innovate with new population health models of care funded by risk-based contracts. While many of the early innovators are struggling to deliver a positive return, others are finding success as they pivot their models, giving more attention to data-driven care management strategies that more predictably suggest the right level of care to the right patients at the right time. And still others are willing to redefine 'whole person' care as they look beyond the traditional walls of healthcare. A Coalition of the Willing explores the successes and struggles among care teams from the Camden Coalition, Partners Healthcare, Health Quality Partners, and others, as they discover new methods to make healthcare sustainable while serving the most complex patients in their communities. In important ways, each of these organizations have discovered positive healthcare outcomes with their most complex patients by addressing solutions to housing, employment, behavioral health and social challenges in addition to their traditional healthcare needs. Critics argue the fixes are short term at best, or the result of skewed reporting, while others fear economic catastrophe still awaits these early innovators after their years of effort to prove these new models successful. Can redefining success per-patient, improving targeted interventions, and actively using care management teams actually have a long-term impact?