News
Five Drug-Pricing Predictions for 2021
January 2021
W2O’s Value + Access team shared 2021 predictions for drug pricing, value, and access. Check out the team’s estimates below, and see how they tracked against last year’s predictions here. 1. Transparency Will Make a Comeback We went all-in on “transparency” two years ago, reasoning that a combination of state legislation and DTC-ad policies would…
Quality Outlook: Using Social Media to Measure Cancer Patient Experience and Outcomes
January 2021
In the last few years, social media has come to dominate much of public discourse, including for health care. In the latest installment of Discern Health’s Quality Outlook blog series in the Journal of Clinical Pathways, Partner Tom Valuck, Vice President Theresa Schmidt, Director David Blaisdell, and Manasi Tirodkar explore ways social media and the process of “social listening” can offer a…
How Life Sciences Companies Can Assess Quality and Value Strategy Progress
January 2021
Value-based care is creating new market demands for life sciences companies. Discern Health has worked with numerous life sciences clients to navigate these new demands and identify opportunities for further integration of quality and value into life sciences strategy. We have also identified concrete steps that life sciences companies can take to overcome barriers to…
Biden’s Advisors: A Drug-Pricing Reading List
December 2020
A new administration means a fresh set of policy approaches but it also means new people who can guide the process of turning those approaches into legislative and regulatory action. President-elect Biden is building out that team, which now includes California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, nominated to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Center for American…
Discern Develops a Framework for Life Sciences Quality and Value Strategy
December 2020
Value-based care is creating dynamic change in the US health care system. For the past 20 years, Medicare, Medicaid, and health insurers have moved steadily toward performance-based payment models for providers and health plans. These trends have motivated doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers to organize into integrated delivery systems, both to improve their…
Discern and Partners Publish Patient-Reported Measures Call to Action for Payers
December 2020
Payers play a critical role in promoting high-value patient care, and patient-reported measures (PRMs) and performance measures (PR-PMs) are key to bringing patient voices into value-based care and payment. Discern Health and the National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC) published a call to action for payers in a viewpoint article in the Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy….
Discern Leads Study to Support Arizona Serious Illness Outcomes Improvement
December 2020
Discern Health recently completed a best practices study in collaboration with the Arizona Coalition to Transform Serious Illness Care (AZ Coalition) to identify community-based strategies to help people with serious illness in Arizona manage health conditions, reduce the risk of adverse events, and increase the number of days at home. The AZ Coalition is a…
Discern to Facilitate Discussion on Increasing Racial Equity in Nursing Homes
December 2020
The events of 2020—from the COVID-19 pandemic to the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many other Black Americans—have brought both systemic racism and disparities in health outcomes into sharp focus. Recognizing that these issues extend into the post-acute and long-term care (PALTC) industry, the Advancing Excellence in Long-Term Care Collaborative (AELTCC) is focusing…
Guy D’Andrea Authors Chapter on ACO Quality Measures
December 2020
Discern Health Managing Partner Guy D’Andrea is the primary author of a chapter on quality measures in a new guide, Pathways to a Successful Accountable Care Organization, aimed at helping people through the complicated process of establishing and running a successful accountable care organization (ACO). The new book is edited by Peter A. Gross and…
Manasi Tirodkar Investigates Patient-Centered Oncology Care
December 2020
Discern Health Director Manasi Tirodkar recently co-authored two articles that investigate the implementation of a patient-centered oncology care model and standards. In the American Journal of Managed Care article, “Patient-Centered Oncology Care: Impact on Utilization, Patient Experiences, and Quality,” Manasi and team determine whether the implementation of patient-centered oncology standards in five medical oncology practices…
