Addressing Population Health: Regional Partnership

Since the 1970s, the state of Maryland has operated on a different payment system for Medicare than that in the rest of the country. Known as the Maryland Waiver, recent terms have focused on reducing cost and waste while increasing value and scope toward population health. This article describes a partnership between 2 community hospitals in Maryland to meet the goals of the waiver. The partnership addressed the triple aim: improving access and population health; improving the experience of care; and decreasing per capita hospital costs for the patients both organizations serve. The goals of the partnership were to develop and implement cross-organizational, multidisciplinary tools and processes to reduce potentially avoidable utilization; integrate behavioral health into primary care settings; and improve all hospital patient outcomes and satisfaction for the target population. The success of the interventions implemented has exceeded the metrics in the proposal.