MNCM News

MN Community Measurement’s work focuses on producing trusted data, collaborating to add value, transparent reporting, and innovating to provide meaningful and actionable data that drives improvement. We are excited to unveil a revised mission statement, refreshed commitments to the community, and a new logo that reflect the evolution of our efforts.

Our revised mission statement speaks to the power and impact of the initiatives that are core to our work:

MN Community Measurement empowers health care decision makers with meaningful data to drive improvement.

The commitments to our community are as follows:

• Be a primary trusted source for health data sharing and measurement
• Collaborate with our community to prioritize measures that matter most
• Drive change that improves health, patient experience, cost, and equity of care for everyone
• Be a transparent resource for providers and patients to improve care
• Partner with others to use our information to catalyze significant improvements in health
• Innovate to provide meaningful data to health care decision-makers
• Provide national leadership in the development of measurement best practices

MNCM’s new logo reflects the organization’s data-sharing efforts and showcases the progress that results from measurement. The varied colors are representative of the variety of health care stakeholders MNCM collaborates with and empowers with data.

Thank you for your ongoing partnership and support!

If you like to keep track of new developments at the national level in terms of quality measurement and value-based payment, two recent reports may be of interest:

• In early April, the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network, a national public-private effort to improve quality and lower health care costs through value-based payment initiatives, published its interactive “Roadmap for Driving High Performance in Alternative Payment Models.” The Roadmap describes current best practices in design of alternative payment methodologies, payer-provider collaboration, and person-centered care.
• In March, the National Quality Forum published a white paper called “Measurement Systems: A Framework for Next Generation Measurement of Quality in Healthcare.” The paper outlines key aspects of measurement systems that go beyond lists of performance measures. These aspects include objectives/intended use, methods of aggregation, incentive mechanisms, risk adjustment, and attribution.

Mark your calendar for the 3rd Annual National Affordability Summit, hosted by the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement (NRHI). NRHI is a network of nonprofit, multi-stakeholder organizations that work to improve health care through regional collaboration. The Affordability Summit brings together health care leaders, policymakers, and influencers from across the nation. The keynote speaker for this event is Christopher F. Koller, president of the Milbank Memorial Fund.

The Affordability Summit will be held in Minneapolis at the McNamara Alumni Center at the University of Minnesota on October 16. Register now to save your spot.

Patsy Riley from the Minnesota Council of Health Plans and Clarissa Cox from PreferredOne have joined MNCM’s Board of Directors.

Patsy is currently serving as the Interim President and Chief Executive Officer for the Minnesota Council of Health Plans. Her past leadership experience includes roles at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, Stratis Health, Allina Health, UnitedHealthcare, and Aetna. She was recently named to serve on the Board of Directors of Lifeworks. Patsy previously served as a board member at the American Heart Association Greater Midwest Affiliates, Children’s Theatre Company, and Perspectives. She was named one of the Top 50 Women Business Leaders in 2016 and was the Inaugural Recipient of the Blue Cross Patsy Riley Health Equity Award at Blue Shield of Minnesota in 2017. Patsy also received the Pinnacle Award from the Women’s Health Leadership Trust in 2018, recognizing her lifetime achievements and contributions to health care in Minnesota.

Clarissa Cox, a senior health care executive, joined PreferredOne in January 2019 as their Vice President of Clinical Operations and Care Transformation. Clarissa is responsible for the oversight of the organization’s health management programs, including utilization management, case management, disease management, risk adjustment, and quality program functions, also ensuring an integrated approach for medical and pharmacy services.

Prior to joining PreferredOne, Clarissa served as Vice President of Population Health at Network Health in Menasha, Wisconsin. Prior to joining Network Health, Clarissa, served as the vice president of clinical integration at Ascension Columbia St. Mary’s, the largest nonprofit health system dedicated to health care transformation through innovation across the continuum of care. Clarissa earned her Bachelor of Science in nursing from Alverno College and her MBA from Marquette University, both in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

MNCM is pleased to welcome Sue Knudson, MA, as the new co-chair of MARC. Sue Knudson is Senior Vice President and Chief Health Engagement and Informatics Officer at HealthPartners. She has responsibility for the leadership and oversight of health and care engagement, pharmacy and dental strategic direction, and operations aiming to improve health outcomes and wellbeing for patients and members. Her accountabilities also include oversight of health plan quality and associated programs and services to support achievement of improved health, experience, and affordability. Sue has been an actively engaged MARC member for over seven years. She joins Rahshana Price-Isuk, MD, medical director at Neighborhood HealthSource who serves as the other co-chair.

MNCM’s Will Muenchow will be presenting at the 15th Annual Minnesota e-Health Summit on June 13. The presentation, “Software Robotics: From Sci-Fi to the Work Place,” will focus on the history of software robotics, multi-industry application, and how the MNCM Process Intelligence Performance Engine (PIPE) utilizes software robotics for data extraction and other use cases. The presentation will include a software robotics demonstration. We encourage everyone who is interested in MNCM’s efforts to streamline data extraction and measurement to attend.

MNCM recently released two new reports on health care disparities:

• 2018 Minnesota Health Care Disparities Report by Insurance Type summarizes quality measures for patients enrolled in Minnesota Health Care Programs (MHCP) and makes comparisons by insurance type. It also highlights high performing medical groups for the MHCP patient population. The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) contracts with MNCM to produce this report.
• 2018 Minnesota Health Care Disparities by Race, Ethnicity, Language, and Country of Origin (RELC) features statewide and medical group performance rates stratified by race, Hispanic ethnicity, preferred language, and country of origin.

Last year was the first time MNCM released a “Call for Presentations” for MNCM’s Annual Seminar, and it was a huge success! Once again, MNCM is soliciting proposals for presentations on topics related to improving health care quality and affordability for our 2019 seminar. Ideas for presentation focus areas include:

• Effective strategies to improve health equity and reduce disparities
• Advancing quality and affordability through collaboration and effective use of data
• Leveraging performance data to target interventions that improve quality and affordability

The submission deadline for a presentation outline is May 31. Interested? Submit your presentation proposal.

The 2019 MNCM Annual Seminar will be hosted on Thursday, September 12, at the Earle Brown Center in Brooklyn Center. Join your colleagues from across the region for a rich day of information sharing around innovations to improve health care quality and affordability.

Early bird registration is open until July. Register now. Watch for more details soon!

MNCM recognizes that all health care stakeholders have an important role to play in advancing improvement in health care cost and quality and we rely on the active engagement of stakeholders to help us deliver resources to the community that are timely, actionable, and relevant.

MNCM has recently launched an expanded supporting membership program with new membership benefits. Membership dues support MNCM’s efforts to drive health care improvement and to make quality measurement easier, more meaningful, and more actionable.

Please email Dina Wellbrock or call 612-454-4829 for information on how to become a supporting member of MNCM.