Care Without Delay program, 'succinct' value-based guides are key to Risant Health's value-based care push, says CEO Jaewon Ryu, M.D., J.D.

In a fifth segment from an extended interview with Managed Healthcare Executive, Jaewon Ryu, M.D., J.D., identified the Care Without Delay program and the value-based care guides as central elements of the value-based care program being implemented at Risant Health, which comprises Geisinger Health in north-central Pennsylvania and Cone Health in North Carolina.

Ryu was the lead author of an article published in February in NEJM Catalyst that describes the value-based program and some of the early results. The Care Without Delay program has 21 elements designed to smooth workflows and improve care coordination across various parts of the health systems. The value-based care guides identify high-value care choices and delineate the roles of the primary care physician and specialists.

The guides help solve the problem of unwarranted variability in care, Ryu said. Early results from Geisinger show a 5.2% decline in referrals to specialists. That may seem like a small number, said Ryu, "but if you extrapolate that to thousands and thousands of specialty referrals that are generated every year, you're opening up an awful lot of specialty slots for others that are waiting. " Ryu, who has a background as an emergency department physician, said that waiting times for specialists have a knock-on effect of people seeking care in emergency departments. "Now imagine if you're able to improve access because you've opened up thousands of visits" to specialists, he said.

Ryu said the value-based care guides have been successful because the content — described as “succinct” in NEJM Catalyst — and the system for distributing them complement each other. "Clinicians don't need to toggle to a different screen or platform," he said, because the guides are embedded into the electronic health record.

Specialists appreciate the guides because the patients that are referred to them are more consistently prepared for the visit and "have the complexity and the acuity that merits their involvement," Ryu said.

"It really takes the fundamental principles of getting the right care at the right place at the right time — which is, of course, very cliché — but it actually makes that happen," Ryu said.