Frequently asked questions about the Value Care Alliance.
The Value Care Alliance (VCA) is a collaboration of high quality, cost efficient Connecticut health care systems. This includes hospitals and physicians working together to enhance the efficiency, coordination, and quality of care delivered, while promoting local governance with shared leadership in health care decision making.
The Alliance will provide opportunities to exchange best practices among its members with the goal of reducing health care cost to the consumer/purchaser, improving quality and enhancing the patient’s experience. Additionally, the Alliance will deliver the data and analytical capability to enable efficient and effective care management and optimize the coordination of care across multiple settings.
The Alliance is the largest collaboration of independent hospital systems and physician organizations in the state. Hospital and physician leaders are working together to set the direction for the Alliance in order to enhance the delivery of clinically integrated care, as it helps its members and their patients respond to the changing health care environment.
The mission of the Value Care Alliance is to enhance the health and wellness of populations served by delivering exceptional preventative services, acute and non acute care through clinically integrated and connected communities of medical professionals who work together to coordinate patient-centered, high-quality and efficient care.
The vision of the Value Care Alliance is to be an essential partner for patients, employers, payers and providers seeking a competitive integrated system of care that operates at high efficiency and produces outstanding outcomes.
The initial members of the Value Care Alliance are:
Additional health care organizations will be added over time. These Alliance partners are important healthcare leaders in their regions, and each partner's contribution will be significant. This partnership sets the stage for innovation in the delivery of coordinated, locally focused, personalized care.
No. Each health system and physician organization will remain independent. A formal alliance has been established so that members can take advantage of opportunities to share existing services and jointly develop new services and capabilities. The ultimate goal is to deliver smoothly integrated care within each region served and across the state.
No. Each hospital will continue to operate independently with local governance and leadership.
Through clinical integration (CI), physicians and hospitals will work collaboratively to make a significant, shared commitment to performance improvement and will make investments in the needed infrastructure to enable quality and efficiency gains, reduce costs, and ensure patient safety at each member organization.
The Alliance has launched four Advisory Committees:
The Alliance represents a cost efficient, high quality option for patients. With the favorable geographic locations of our participating providers, patients will have easy access to both ambulatory and inpatient care. Collaborative efforts on computer technology will allow for the timely exchange of patient information that will improve outcomes and prevent duplication or over-utilization of health care services. Working together, member hospitals and affiliated physicians across the region will consistently apply best medical practices. Shared services will be designed to carve out costs among member organizations and add value for patients, employers and payers.
A primary goal of the Alliance is to engage patients in their care to ensure an outstanding experience for them and their families. The Alliance will strive to create a healthcare experience that builds loyalty and trust by offering a system of care that includes coordinated care, clinical excellence, choice, convenience, consistency and customer service.
The work of the Alliance will be mostly transparent to hospital employees, though initiatives to improve performance which involve the sharing of best practices will engage employees in the implementation of techniques to improve the delivery and cost of care. The Alliance will be devoted to capturing opportunities to reduce or share costs in areas such as supplies, contracted services and information technology.
Alliances provide community hospitals with the option to remain independent with local control over governance rather than being acquired or merging with an existing system and being subject to that System’s needs. Creating an alliance allows its members to take advantage of the benefits of scale, share best practices and pursue efficiencies es while addressing local market needs.