Research Project Raises Bar on DM Outcomes Measurement; IHPM Teams Up With Population Health Impact Institute.

PHOENIX -- Objective and credible measurement of disease-management (DM) program results is now possible thanks to a new groundbreaking research initiative that's expected to transform the employer market.

The Institute for Health and Productivity Management (IHPM) and its Disease Management Strategic Advisory Council (DMSAC) today joined forces on several projects with the newly formed Population Health Impact Institute (PHII) to focus exclusively on employers and their return on investment (ROI) from defined population health-improvement and chronic-care management programs that include DM benchmarks.

Together, they will embark on the nation's first employer-based, DM collaboration that includes Fortune 500 companies, midsize firms and community providers who are the first line of defense for care-focused, health-improvement programs in defined populations.

"Employers are no longer willing to have brokers, consultants, vendors, health plans and PBMs declare the value proposition, then turn around and at the same time provide the objective answers to the test of that value," according to DMSAC Chairman Les C. Meyer.

Findings from the initial research will include a literature search, employer focus groups and survey that will be presented at IHPM's inaugural conference, Care-Focused Disease Management at Work: Designing Benefits and Programs for Functional Outcomes, which will be held March 10-11, 2005 at Disney's Contemporary Resort in Orlando, Fla.

PHII, with the support of IHPM, seeks to conduct independent, accurate and credible evaluation of the methodological procedures and outcomes of defined population health management programs as well as the impact methodologies (e.g., ROI) used to determine their value. These evidence-based results, in turn, will enable employers to make better and more strategic health care purchasing decisions.

Indeed, comparing the results of different methodological procedures will help uncover flaws and biases inherent in existing methodologies, reports PHII Founder Thomas W. Wilson, Ph.D., DrPH, a prominent epidemiologist in the disease management arena. He states that "with biases minimized in the eyes of the marketplace, program-to-program comparisons will enable employers to purchase the best-value care."

PHII intends to generate a higher standard of program measurement. While NCQA, JCAHO and URAC offer independent and credible accreditation to DM program processes, Wilson says these groups do not assess different methodologies against each other nor do they compare outcomes results from different methodologies and/or different programs.

Explains IHPM Co-Founder, President and CEO Sean Sullivan: "Employers trying to navigate the complex universe of DM programs now will have a reliable roadmap to calculate a valid ROI." He says transparency is the key to validity and reliability in diverse fields like financial accounting and clinical quality improvement, adding that customers need to be able to see how the results were obtained in order to trust them.

Sullivan and Wilson both believe that there is a strong and growing demand for impartial and objective decision support research in the business of population health management. They agree this must involve disclosure of methods used to assess value, results both positive and negative, and potential conflicting economic interests.

Prior to the DMSAC 2005 inaugural conference a set of field studies will be identified and implementation plans launched with employers. Progress in both the research project and employer-based field studies will be reported by the IHPM as well as peer-reviewed publications. IHPM can use the results -- independent of PHII -- to improve the predictive ability of its own new Economic Valuation Tool that a group of selected employers will use early next year to prioritize their health and productivity management investments.

PHII will provide to the employer market two benchmarking tools that include Methodology Crash Tests(TM), which use approved measurement parameters to score the impact of ROI methodological processes and outcomes used in defined population health management programs, and Program Crash Tests(TM), which track the outcomes of different defined population health management programs using the same impact/ROI methodologies on similarly defined populations. In addition, PHII Benchmark Publications will feature reports of all crash-test results.

Besides Wilson, charter members of PHII's Advisory Board include:

--Robert M. Day, Ph.D., Director, Health Planning and Finance Team, Office of the Governor, Kansas.

--Ian Duncan, FSA, MAAA, Actuary, Lotter Actuarial Partners.

--Jeffery Guterman, M.D., Senior Medical Director, LA County Department of Health and Professor of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA.

--Ariel Linden, DrPH, Health Services Researcher, Linden Consulting Group.

--Gary Montrose, PHII Co-Founder and Population Health Business Advisor.

--Maureen Connors Potter, Executive Director, Disease-Specific Care Certification, Joint Commission Accreditation Healthcare Organizations.

--Alex Rodriquez, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Magellan Health Services, Inc.

--Patricia Salber, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Center for Practical Healthcare Reform.

About IHPM

The Institute for Health and Productivity Management (IHPM) is a nonprofit research, demonstration and education organization created to document and promote the vital relationship of employee health to productivity. IHPM's mission is to establish employee health as a sound business investment for corporate success.

About PHII

The Population Health Impact Institute (PHII) is a nonprofit organization founded in 2004 to promote independent, accurate and credible evaluation of methodological procedures and outcomes of defined population health management programs as well as the impact methodologies (e.g., ROI) used to determine their value. With the support of nationally recognized advisors in academic, scientific and business circles, PHII seeks to help employers, managed care organizations, government, care management providers, and patients make better decisions about the value of these programs.