It is with great pride that Wayne County Hospital and Clinic System (WCHCS) announces it has joined the Mercy Accountable Care Organization (Mercy ACO), and will be partnering with the ACO on a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Award.
Effective January 1, 2015, WCHCS will officially be a participant member of Mercy ACO. In July of 2012, Mercy ACO became a recognized Accountable Care Organization under the Medicare Shared Savings Program. With the program’s focus of improved quality of care and increased patient value, the shared savings program was a logical next step in the evolution of Mercy’s health care model. The Medicare Shared Savings Program further aligns incentives to providing quality health care, increased patient satisfaction and lower cost for this patient population.
Mercy ACO is made up of a team of health care providers working together to coordinate patient care. The ACO combines the entire range of patient care — primary doctor, specialists, hospitals, home health services, etc. — in an effort to realize greater efficiencies and lower the out-of-pocket costs for patients.
Effective November 1, 2014, WCHCS will also be a participant site in the Mercy ACO/Mercy Health Network (MHN) $10.1 million CMS Health Care Innovation Award, which was announced earlier this year. Thanks to the CMS Health Care Innovation Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, this award will allow funding to MHN Critical Access Hospitals (CAH) and their allied clinics to begin transitioning to value-based care.
The 25 CAH facilities and 73 clinics are located in 37 counties in Iowa and Nebraska. They are affiliated with MHN members — Mercy Medical Center – Des Moines, Mercy Medical Center – North Iowa and Mercy Medical Center – Sioux City.
More than 160,000 people could see benefits through better management of chronic conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. This project will use the in-clinic health coach model developed by Mercy Clinics in Des Moines. This model has been successful in delivering better care and controlling cost. It’s still being used successfully by Mercy ACO. Health coaches are achieving good results through education, prevention activities and encouraging better medication adherence by patients. Wayne County Hospital and Clinic System is excited to be part of these two innovative models and groundbreaking work for rural Iowa health care.
About Mercy ACO
Established in 2012, Mercy Accountable Care Organization (ACO) focuses on building a new health care model, concentrated on providing enhanced medical services while improving outcomes and lowering costs for all patients. Today, Mercy ACO includes 100 member organizations and covers the lives of approximately 117,000 patients in a variety of shared savings programs and value based contracts.
About WCHCS
We are a 25-bed licensed Critical Access Hospital (CAH) and serve as a medical/surgical hospital with medical imaging and laboratory services, obstetrical services, dialysis unit plus, inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation therapy. Our rehabilitation services team provides physical, occupational and speech language therapy.
The emergency department, designated as a Level IV Trauma Center, provides 24-hour emergency care and offers stabilization and transfer services to patients requiring more specialized care. Ambulance and medical helicopter transfer services are available with highly trained emergency personnel.
Our medical staff consists of family practice physicians and a general surgeon, complemented by physician assistants, certified nurse midwife and nurse practitioners. In addition, we provide obstetric care for a 5-county area.
The Amy Robertson Specialty Clinic offers patients local care with visiting specialists in audiology, cardiology, dermatology, DOT physicals/occupational health, ear, nose and throat, nephrology, oncology, ophthalmology, orthopedics, podiatry, urology and wound healing. The hospital clinic system operates four rural health clinics conveniently located in Corydon, Humeston, Lineville and Seymour to provide better health care access to patients throughout the area.
The project described was supported by Grant Number 1C1CMS331327-01-00 from the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The contents of this publication are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or any of its agencies.