Partnership for a Healthy Arkansas Remain in Talks

The Partnership for a Healthy Arkansas is owned equally by Arkansas Blue Cross & Blue Shield, Baptist Health, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, St. Bernards Healthcareand Washington Regional Medical System.

The Partnership for a Healthy Arkansas, which was formed by some of the biggest health care organizations in Arkansas last October, continues its discussions on the best ways to reduce health care costs.

But so far, no initiatives have been put in place, even though several are being worked on and a final decision on them is close, Bob Dolan, executive director of the partnership, said in an email to Arkansas Business. He said he couldn’t say what those programs were until they are final.

The Partnership for a Healthy Arkansas was formed as a “shared services organization” at the end of October 2015 and is owned equally by Arkansas Blue Cross & Blue Shield, Baptist Health and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, all in Little Rock; St. Bernards Healthcare in Jonesboro; and Washington Regional Medical System in Fayetteville.

The partnership said it expects to save its members millions of dollars, but at the time of the announcement no specific details of how it would save money were released.

Dolan, who started working at the partnership in April, said the talks on saving money are in areas such as bio-medical services and clinical engineering, which is using engineering and technology to analyze and improve patient care.

Talks also are focused on information technology security and human resources benefits programs.

“Currently, the majority of our time is spent on population health and understanding where each partner is in its various efforts to improve patient care and outcomes,” Dolan said.

The goal of the partnership’s first year was to hire a staff and “bring structure and discipline to discussion and prioritization to ideas and initiatives,” Dolan said. “We’ve made good progress in this area.”

In September, the partnership hired its second employee, Michael Stockwell, to help with project management and business analysis.

Dolan said it takes time to understand each of the partner’s issues and how to be more efficient and effective as a group.

“The simple fact that the partners are around the same table and talking about these opportunities is a success,” Dolan said.