Engaging stakeholders to thoughtfully restructure into an integrated healthcare delivery system is no easy task, but MassHealth did just that through its Accountable Care Organization (ACO) initiative, UMass Medical School’s Carolyn Langer, MD, told Healthcare IT News. Dr. Langer will discuss the initiative at a forum in Boston April 3.
MassHealth, Massachusetts’ Medicaid program, recently embarked on an exhaustive process to integrate mental and physical health and long-term services and supports, understand patient subpopulations, and identify cross-department linkages as part of its ACO initiative.
Langer, who leads the Office of Clinical Affairs in UMass Medical School’s Commonwealth Medicine division, spearheaded the Mass Health restructure. As part of her role, Langer serves as medical director for MassHealth and is responsible for the medical management of all health care services provided by MassHealth to its members.
The strategy and cross-functional work that went into the 1.5-year process to reconstruct MassHealth will be detailed by Langer at the HIMSS Pop Health Forum at the Westin Copley Place in Boston. The 11:50 a.m. session on April 3 will also discuss what the new structure means for members and community partners—be co-presented by Linda Shaughnessy, director of the quality office at MassHealth.
Langer invited a broad base of stakeholders—government agencies, health plans, providers, advocacy groups that represent individuals who require special services—to inform the robust process to identify challenges and opportunities in the MassHealth delivery system. She engaged a multidisciplinary team to guide the establishment of principles that promote quality care throughout the organization.
“Advocacy groups and consumers included a broad swath of people with significant representation from behavioral health and long-term services and supports,” said Langer. “And we had eight workgroups meeting for several months, and then some of the workgroups continued on. There were also a series of town hall meetings and other opportunities for specific types of experts and stakeholder input.”