BCBSM and U-M Health System launch Michigan HealthQuarters, a new organization devoted to improving Michigan's health care

Joint venture created as part of M-CARE sale begins search for its first executive director and undertakes U-M employee diabetes quality project as its first effort

 

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This is a news release from Michigan HealthQuarters.

ANN ARBOR, February 19, 2007 - A new Michigan organization is dedicated to improving the quality of the state's health care system, and transforming the way patient care is delivered in the state and beyond. Called Michigan HealthQuarters LLC, it is a joint venture of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and the University of Michigan Health System.

In recent weeks, the organization held the first meeting of its board of managers, launched a national search for its first executive director, and chose the first project that it will undertake: evaluating if lower prescription drug co-payments for people with diabetes can improve the processes and outcomes of diabetes care.

The rapid series of events follows the University of Michigan's sale of its M-CARE health plan to BCBSM and its HMO subsidiary, Blue Care Network, which was finalized on Dec. 31, 2006. The sale terms included the creation of a separate joint venture aimed at improving the quality, safety, efficiency and appropriateness of health care in Michigan. BCBSM has committed up to $10 million to fund Michigan HealthQuarters, and UMHS and BCBSM are equal partners in the venture.

MHQ's board, which includes four members from each of the founding organizations, is chaired by Kevin L. Seitz, executive vice president of Health Care Value Enhancement for BCBSM. Its vice chair is John E. Billi, M.D., associate vice president for medical affairs at U-M and associate dean for clinical affairs at the U-M Medical School.

"This is good news for Michigan as we launch an exciting venture that seeks to enhance the delivery and efficiency of health care services to our state's residents," says Seitz.

Billi notes that the joint venture builds on years of cooperation between UMHS and BCBSM. "For nearly a decade, we have partnered in the BCBSM Cardiovascular Consortium, an award-winning project that has saved lives and costs by reducing angioplasty complications at Michigan hospitals and is now working to speed patients’ access to emergency angioplasty," he says. "Projects like that are what this joint venture is all about."  

The first project to be led by MHQ is actually one that began at U-M in July of 2006, when the University began reducing or eliminating co-pays for employees and their dependents who have diabetes. More than 2,000 people are now participating. This project, called MHealthy: Focus on Diabetes, now will be based in MHQ and administered by its staff, although participants will not notice any change.

The MHQ team will collect and analyze data together with a team from U-M to see if a reduction in out-of-pocket costs succeeds in increasing participants' use of medications and tests that can slow or prevent diabetes complications such as heart disease, blindness and kidney failure.

The project is the first of many that MHQ will pursue, Seitz and Billi note. The board will meet regularly to consider potential areas of health care that might be open to projects that will improve the delivery of services, get the right care to the right person at the right time, prevent medical errors, reduce risks, avoid unnecessary treatment, or get more value for the dollars spent.

Projects might focus on ways to help people with certain conditions manage their disease, recommending improvements related to specific types of surgery, and implementation of demonstration projects that will measure the impact of specific changes in health care delivery or health benefits design, such as disease management programs, to see if such a change should be rolled out to broader groups of patients. Other projects might be designed to evaluate existing health and benefit programs and to look for opportunities to improve them.

As time goes on, MHQ will issue requests for proposals and make pilot funding available for the most innovative and valuable proposed projects. 

The venture will allow health experts from all areas of U-M, including the Health System, and from other institutions, to pursue projects under contract with the new entity. Blue Care Network and other BCBSM subsidiaries also will be closely involved with the work of the joint venture. Any use of data for research will be under the jurisdiction of the appropriate research-oversight process to protect patient privacy and rights.

Results or findings of most of the projects commissioned by the joint venture will be available to all health experts. MHQ also may endorse and promote programs and care delivery enhancements developed through projects it fosters.

The position of chair will rotate annually between candidates chosen by the four BCBSM board members and those chosen by the four UMHS members.

The following individuals are on the Michigan HealthQuarters board:

Biographies of the board members are below.

The executive director job posting for Michigan HealthQuarters is number 6722 on the U-M jobs Web site, www.umich.edu/~jobs.

The Michigan Health System is the academic medical center of the University of Michigan, and is considered one of the nation’s leading medical and research institutions. It comprises the U-M Medical School, its Faculty Group Practice and numerous research laboratories; three U-M-owned hospitals (University, C.S. Mott Children's, and Women's) with 865 licensed beds; more than 30 health centers and 120 outpatient clinics; specialized centers for cancer, cardiovascular, depression, diabetes, geriatrics, organ transplant, vision and women's health research and care; the Michigan Visiting Nurses and the Michigan Health Corporation. For more information, visit www.umich.edu.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, a nonprofit corporation, provides or administers health care benefits to just over 4.7 million members through a variety of plans: Traditional Blue Cross Blue Shield; Blue Preferred, Community Blue and Healthy Blue PPOs; Blue Care Network HMO, and Flexible Blue plans compatible with health savings accounts. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Blue Care Network are nonprofit corporations and independent licensees of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. For more information, visit www.bcbsm.com. 


 

Board members: Michigan HealthQuarters

 

Members selected by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan

Robert Milewski is Senior Vice President of Contracting and Hospital Relations for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. He is directly responsible for registration and credentialing of all medical providers who deliver services to BCBSM's more than four million members. BCBSM contracts with approximately 140 acute-care hospitals in Michigan, 1,800 other medical facilities in the state and more than 20,000 Michigan physicians. He interacts with hospital leaders across the state. Before joining the Blues in February 2007, Milewski was President and CEO of Mount Clemens Regional Medical Center and Associate Hospital Director at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. He served as Director of Pharmacy and in other leadership posts at Children's Hospital of Michigan. Milewski began his career as a staff pharmacist at William Beaumont Hospitals in Royal Oak and Troy. He is a fellow and past regent of the American College of Healthcare Executives and chair-elect of the Greater Detroit Area Health Council. He also has served as board chair of the Michigan Healthcare Executive Group and Associates, a member of the Michigan Hospital Association Board, and on the board of Leadership Macomb.

Kevin L. Seitz, Chair of the MHQ board, is Executive Vice President of Health Care Value Enhancement for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.  Previously Seitz served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Blue Care Network of Michigan, the HMO subsidiary of BCBSM, and also as Senior Vice President of Subsidiary Operations for BCBSM. Prior to that, he had been Vice President of Product Development for BCBSM and Vice President of PPO and Ancillary Services, as well as the Planning and Policy divisions for the Blues. Before joining the Blues in 1991, Seitz was Director of the Medicaid program for the State of Michigan. Previously, he was Associate Director of Human Services in the Fiscal Agency of the Michigan House of Representatives. He served as Planning and Research Associate for the Michigan League for Human Services and also was a Caseworker for the New York City Health and Hospital Corp. He serves on the Board of Directors of Tomorrow's Child, and on the Board of Visitors of the Michigan State University College of Nursing.

Thomas L. Simmer, M.D. is Senior Vice President for Health Care Value and Provider Affiliation and Chief Medical Officer for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Simmer is responsible for contracting with more than 20,000 physicians who participate in Blue Cross Traditional and PPO plans, as well as directing medical policy. He is responsible for professional payment policies and programs to improve the quality, cost, and access to medical services. Under his leadership, BCBSM has implemented physician incentive programs to promote collaborative improvement programs for more consistent care for persons with chronic illness, and more cost effective prescribing patterns. Prior to 2006, Simmer was Senior Vice President for Health Care Programs and Provider Services and Chief Medical Officer. Prior to joining the Blues in 1999, he served as Vice President of Health and Medical Affairs and as Medical Director for Health Alliance Plan. Simmer also served as Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program at Henry Ford Hospital and was the recipient of several Distinguished Service awards. He is a member of the Michigan State Medical Society and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians.

Douglas R. Woll, M.D. is Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Blue Care Network of Michigan, the HMO subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. His leadership has resulted in seven consecutive National Committee for Quality Assurance Excellent Accreditations for BCN and two full Disease Management accreditations, as well as multiple awards for Disease Management, Pharmacy and Medical Infomatics programs. Prior to joining the Blues in 1998, Woll spent almost a decade at SelectCare, where he served as Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer. He served as a Senior Staff Physician at Henry Ford Hospital from 1980 through 1989. Woll is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, and was elected a Fellow of the American College of Physicians in 1998. He is involved with several professional organizations, including the Quality Committee of America's Health Insurance Plans.

Members selected by the University of Michigan Health System

John E. Billi, M.D., Vice Chair of the MHQ board, is the Associate Vice President for Medical Affairs of U-M, and Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs at the U-M Medical School, where he is a professor of Internal Medicine and Medical Education. He has devoted his career to studying and improving health services delivery, including the cost of care, the impact of changing reimbursement systems, evidence-based guideline uses, pharmacy appropriateness, performance-based differential reimbursement, and conflict of interest management. He leads the Michigan Quality System, which applies Lean Thinking to the continuous improvement of health care delivery at U-M. He serves on the board of the Michigan State Medical Society, where he chairs the Committee on Quality, Efficiency and Economics and the Essential Benefit Design Task Force. He co-chairs the Michigan Quality Improvement Consortium, which endorses common evidence-based guidelines across 14 Michigan health plans. In addition, he chairs the Evidence Based Medicine team for the Greater Detroit Area Health Council's Save Lives Save Dollars initiative.

Rodney Hayward, M.D. is the Director of the Veterans Affairs Center for Practice Management and Outcomes Research, at the V.A. Ann Arbor Healthcare System, one of only 15 V.A. Health Services Research & Development Centers of Excellence in the country. He is also a Professor of Internal Medicine and associate chief of the Division of General Medicine at the U-M Medical School, and a Professor of Health Management & Policy at the U-M School of Public Health. He has a long history of research in quality improvement for chronic diseases, with a special focus on diabetes and preventive services. His work also touches on key areas of health policy including the clinical research that forms the basis for federal approval of new drugs and devices. In 2005, he received the V.A. Under Secretary's Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research, and the U-M Medical School Faculty Award for Achievement in Clinical Research. He also co-directs the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at U-M, which fosters the next generation of health services researchers.

William H. Herman, M.D., M.P.H. is the Stefan S. Fajans/GlaxoSmithKline Professor of Diabetes at the U-M Medical School and director of the Michigan Diabetes Research and Training Center, one of five such centers funded by the National Institutes of Health. He holds professorships in both the Metabolism, Endocrinology & Diabetes Division of the U-M Medical School's Department of Internal Medicine, and in the Department of Epidemiology at the U-M School of Public Health. In 2006, he received the Kelly West Award for Outstanding Achievement in Epidemiology from the American Diabetes Association, for his significant contributions to the field of diabetes epidemiology. He has led or helped lead numerous large-scale studies of diabetes screening, diagnosis, prevention and treatment, including the Epidemiology of Diabetes Intervention and Complications (EDIC) study, and has led a computer-modeling project that uses real-world data to simulate and predict diabetes patterns and costs. In all of his work, he has used epidemiology to guide clinical and public health practice.

Mauro Moscucci, M.D. is an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at the U-M Medical School, in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine. He serves as the division's Associate Chief for New Program Development, and as the Director of Interventional Cardiology Services for the U-M Cardiovascular Center, one of the nation's top heart and vascular centers. He is the Chairman of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Cardiovascular Consortium, which was created in 1997 as a collaborative effort by Michigan health care providers to improve the quality of care in percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) procedures including angioplasty. The BMC2, as it is called, has saved both lives and dollars, and has led to many publications in medical journals that provide a model for improving care around the country. Dr. Moscucci is a key leader in the state and national efforts of the D2B Alliance for Quality, a new Guidelines Applied in Practice program launched by the American College of Cardiology to save time and lives by reducing the door-to-balloon times in emergency PCI for heart attack.

 

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