To meet the new demands of a changing healthcare market, a group of community physicians partnered with Children’s to create The Children’s Care Network, a physician-led, taxable nonprofit subsidiary corporation of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. The Children’s Care Network, Georgia’s only clinically integrated pediatric network, will demonstrate performance and value by emphasizing data-driven approaches to quality improvements.
Pediatricians can benefit from a unified, collaborative system that offers group purchasing power, cost savings, technical resources, and an association with Children’s—the largest and most trusted pediatric healthcare system in the state.
Patients will receive care provided by pediatric-trained physicians.
Achieving better outcomes and improved coordination at a lower cost is the crux of The Children’s Care Network, which was formed to create a clinically integrated network. Unlike physician-hospital organizations or accountable care organizations, The Children’s Care Network is built on several tenets:
• Legal framework—The network must enforce the guidelines within the participation criteria, including treatment outcomes and additional practice improvements, such as participation in a population health management tool.
• Physician leadership—Physicians have the dominant voice in the development of protocols and establishing benchmarks for the network. This leadership structure helps maintain and strengthen the delicate balance between hospital and private practice needs.
• Participation criteria—The network maintains codified guidelines that are applicable to every practice member—large or small.
• Performance improvement—Outcome standards include improving operational efficiencies and reducing duplicative clinical actions. Bigger, Smarter, Faster.
• Information technology—Population health management tools and other technology that can work for a variety of practices to analyze the efficacy of the network’s quality and outcomes benchmarks.
• Contracting options—Once clinically integrated, the network will enable members to jointly negotiate payer incentives for improved outcomes and reduced cost.
Enrollment for Founding Members of The Children’s Care Network ends June 30, 2015. Enrolling as a Founding Member allows a practice to participate actively in the clinical integration process and receive a reduced membership rate of $200 per physician. Enrollment will not re-open again until a later date, when membership dues may increase.
