NPC’s Westrich to Discuss Gaps in Quality Measures, Maximizing Value of Medications in ACOs

Kimberly Westrich, vice president of health services research at the National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC), will lead a workshop, “Quality Measure Gaps in Today’s Accountable Care Programs,“ and also will participate on a panel discussion, “ACO Readiness: Maximizing the Value of Medications.”

The American Journal of Managed Care is hosting its “Accountable Care Organization (ACO) and Emerging Healthcare Delivery Coalition Fall Meeting” this week in Palm Harbor, FL. The event will offer unique perspectives from industry leaders as well as real-world examples that address the vast array of issues relating to emerging delivery models.

Kimberly Westrich, vice president of health services research at the National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC), will lead a workshop, “Quality Measure Gaps in Today’s Accountable Care Programs,“ and present priority measure types and innovative approaches to fill these on Thursday, October 15, beginning at 5:10 pm ET. (Check out the recently published peer-reviewed study “Solutions for Filling Gaps in Accountable Care Measure Sets” for more information on this topic. The paper follows on last year’s white paper, “Accountable Care Measures for High-Cost Specialty Care and Innovative Treatment: You Get What You Pay For—Improving Measures for Accountable Care.”)

Other workshop presenters include Rowena Bartolome, national program leader of the Department of Care and Service Quality at Kaiser Permanente; Dr. Joseph Manganelli, director of clinical pharmacy and chief medical officer of the Care Management Company at Montefiore Medical Center; and Dr. Oluwatobi (Tobi) Ogbechie, preliminary medicine intern at Mount Auburn Hospital.

Ms. Westrich also will participate on a panel discussion, “ACO Readiness: Maximizing the Value of Medications,” on Friday, October 16, at 9:55 am ET. She’ll be joined again by Dr. Manganelli as well as Kristina Lunner, senior director at Leavitt Partners.

Their presentation will share preliminary results from a survey that examines ACOs' capabilities to support, monitor and optimize medication use as they strive to reach their financial and quality benchmarks. The research tracks trends within the environment, and builds on the initial ACO medication readiness assessment, “Are ACOs Ready to Be Accountable for Medication Use?” [View infographic of the results from the initial survey.]

The event also will cover other topics such as data technology, cost/financial, quality, patient experience, transitions of care, care coordination, outcomes and population management. Be sure to check out conference highlights on Twitter by following @AJMC_Journal.