Opportunities in Community Health with Brook Ward

Washington Health System is a small to medium-sized non-profit healthcare system twenty-five miles south of Pittsburgh, PA. Brook Ward, President & CEO of Washington Health System, joined FinThrive’s Jonathan Wiik to discuss the importance a regional health system brings to local communities.

During the past decade, Washington Health System transformed its healthcare model to focus on value-based care. “If we can provide great satisfaction, high-quality, lower utilization, and lower costs, then we share in that savings,” Ward said. “And so, like many organizations, we have those gain-sharing programs with payers, but we’re also in an ACO with three other community non-profit healthcare organizations called Bridges Health Partners for six years.”

Collaboration with payers is essential to making a value-based health system work. “From our perspective, they’re all integral to our future and success,” Ward said. “We can’t afford to take an antagonistic perspective towards them, so we try to work with all of them.” Ward said Washington Health System looks for gaps in care and coding to create efficiencies that improve the provider-payer relationship and mutual success.

Controlling health care utilization doesn’t mean cutting costs and services to satisfy budget constraints; it’s a strategy of keeping people healthy, so they don’t wind up in the ED unless it is a real emergency. “There are lots of patients who show up at every emergency department across the country that could be done through telemedicine, a primary care office, a follow-up discharge appointment, or with some social work/care coordination,” Ward said. Washington Health System provides resources and medical support to underserved community areas, like homeless shelters, to care for those who need it and reduce the amount of ED visits.