SharedClarity has created an alliance of long-time healthcare frenemies (payers and providers) to test effectiveness of heart and orthopedic medical devices with the aim of lowering costs, reducing readmissions, allowing members to negotiate device pricing and getting patients effective implantable devices. For the study, United Healthcare will join forces with Baylor Healthcare System in Dallas, Dignity Health in San Francisco and Advocate Healthcare in Illinois.
Between the 40,000,000 United claims and the 7,000,000-plus patients the healthcare systems represent, SharedClarity President Mark West said the study will provide an independent analysis of which devices are the most effective. (Optum Labs will oversee the research.)
“What’s really unique about SharedClarity is the data that we can pull together,” West said. “It’s data that were not aware that anyone else has been able to pull together and analyze.”
The first 30 types of devices slated for testing are centered around heart and orthopedic implantables. They’re all “high clinical impact” products that directly contribute to patient well-being, West said.
Eventually, this information will allow members to negotiate pricing with medical device companies (and the logical leap: this will probably affect which devices payers are willing to cover, too).
The theory is it should also cut readmissions and provide better outcomes for patients–both of which would take cost out of the system.
The tests, which are led by member physicians, are about four months in on clinical evaluations of the first three devices: peripheral stents, bare metal stents and drug-eluding stents. While West couldn’t comment on the findings of these studies, he said they should be finished by the end of the year.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
For now, the company plans to share the information only with members and anticipates adding more health system members soon.
Bottom line: As healthcare moves toward wellness and effectiveness and major players (even in the conservative device industry) begin to expand business to “healthcare service,” this kind of union will become more and more common. In the near future of healthcare, we can plan to see plenty of these formerly unlikely power-driven partnerships arise to save providers, payers and (lest we forget) patients money.
