Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc. is joining its competitors in helping their customers manage the new Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) and other value-based payment systems.
Zimmer Biomet Offers Providers Value-Payment Help
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On July 26, 2016, the company unveiled its Signature Solutions program, “a comprehensive suite of clinical services and technologies designed to assist hospitals and medical practices to seamlessly transition to value-based healthcare models by maintaining excellent patient outcomes, while maximizing procedural and cost efficiencies across the entire episode of care.”
In other words, help their customers avoid the penalties built into the CJR model.
The company says Signature Solutions had its genesis in the mid-1990s, when Zimmer Biomet launched its expert consulting services in response to the evolving global shift toward value-based healthcare. Since then, the company says it has advised more than 450 hospitals and healthcare facilities worldwide on “improving the value of their musculoskeletal programs by providing better care, lowering costs and increasing the number of patients treated.”
Combining those previous consulting services with new technologies and services will offer customers a “one-of-a-kind offering that drives improvement across every aspect of the healthcare value creation equation. Initially, Zimmer Biomet will offer the comprehensive suite of solutions to musculoskeletal healthcare service lines at select, academic facilities in the U.S., with a broader release scheduled for 2017.”
Signature Solutions Components
The core components of Signature Solutions will include:
- Interactive and proven patient engagement tools designed to educate patients about the procedure and treatment options, facilitate physician-patient communication, and increase patient adherence to pre-op, intra-op and post-op/rehab protocols.
- Data mining and analysis platform that enables hospitals to collect critical patient-reported outcomes data (i.e., satisfaction with care, pain management, facility, etc.) that can factor into the level of reimbursement provided for each procedure.
- Expert consulting services, digital health software solutions and personalized, patient-specific medical technologies and instruments that help hospitals improve patient outcomes, increase overall productivity and surgical efficiency by streamlining workflow, and enhance surgical and rehab protocols.
“Our 90-year legacy and leadership in musculoskeletal healthcare, coupled with more than a decade of consulting experience delivering measurably improved outcomes for large and small institutions worldwide, gives Zimmer Biomet a deep understanding of the levers driving success in the value-based healthcare environment, ” said Zimmer Biomet President and CEO David Dvorak.
“Signature Solutions will encapsulate our exclusive and extensive knowledge of the new healthcare landscape into the first end-to-end suite of clinical services, technologies and proprietary analytical tools, which are designed to work seamlessly with the institutions’ existing infrastructure to improve quality outcomes, provide more efficient care and increase provider throughput.”
Providers Under Pressure
Todd Dietrick, M.D., orthopedic surgeon at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California, said, “Healthcare institutions are under increased pressure to minimize inefficiencies along the entire episode of care while delivering superior quality of care and a positive patient experience. Over the past year, we engaged Signature Solutions’ expert consulting services to guide our clinical and operational teams to improve the value of our orthopedic program by creating standards for patient optimization and surgical performance.”
Dvorak said he and his colleagues look forward to a “broad-scale launch of Signature Solutions timed to coincide with institutions seeking ways to redesign care protocols and identify potential cost saving opportunities in the new bundled payment environment.”
Competitors Abound
Just three months ago Stryker Corporation introduced JointCOACH at its 9th Annual Orthopedic & Spine Summit in Chicago. With that introduction, Stryker is attempting to help hospitals across the country navigate Medicare’s new five-year CJR payment model for hip and knee replacements that holds them financially responsible for the total cost of the entire replacement episode. DePuy Synthes and Medtronic plc have also introduced management programs to help their customers navigate the new payment landscape.
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This is a fascinating development. In my practice we've seen similar outcomes with the revised protocol. The key differentiator seems to be patient selection criteria. Has anyone else noticed the correlation with BMI thresholds?
Great point. I'd push back slightly on the conclusion, the sample size in the cited study is too small to draw population-level inferences. That said, the directional signal is compelling and worth a larger RCT.
We implemented a similar approach last year. Early results are promising but we're still gathering 12-month follow-up data. Happy to share our protocol if anyone is interested.
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