Dr Katherine Baker Emphasizes the Importance of Collaboration Between Physicians, Payers

Before the Institute for Value-Based Medicine^® (IVBM) event held in partnership with Tennessee Oncology on August 22, Katherine Baker, MD, MMHC, listed innovations she thinks help make specialty care delivery easier and which challenges require innovative solutions. Additionally, Baker explained the importance of hearing the perspectives of physicians and payers on specialty value-based care.

Baker was a co-chair of the IVBM event. Next month, she will join Tennessee Oncology as a practicing medical oncologist and the medical director of value-based care.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Transcript

Are there any particular innovations that help make specialty care delivery easier? If so, what?

One thing that I have learned as a result of discussions in preparing for the event tonight is that collaboration—both across health care systems, as well as between health care systems and payers—really can amplify the effect of innovation and entrepreneurship and health care. By breaking down silos and forging partnerships between different organizations, we can really capitalize on resources and bring together data sets and people to drive innovation and value-based care.

On the payer side of things, partnerships between health care organizations and payers really bring together the people that are experts in the operational success and financial success of value-based care initiatives. So, I think bringing all of those people together in collaboration can really help to forge the way for innovation in value-based care.

Currently, what are the most pressing challenges in specialty care delivery that require innovative solutions?

I think the biggest challenge in specialty care delivery that is going to require very innovative solutions, particularly in value-based care, is the complexity of the conditions that we treat.

From the constant change in treatment pathways to personalized medicine that can vary from disease states, thinking about how we can both wrap payment and quality metrics around these complex conditions I think is really challenging and going to require some disruptive efforts in the field to be able to accomplish.

Why is it important to hear both physician and payer perspectives on specialty value-based care?

I think physicians and payers bring different perspectives to value-based care. On the physician side of things, they bring clinical expertise. It's important to have physicians be part of the conversations around value-based care because they can help to design metrics that really focus on the clinical outcomes that matter for both patients and health care providers.

On the payer side of things, as I previously mentioned, I think they bring the operational and financial expertise to make value-based care payment models work. So, you really need collaboration between both of these 2 groups of people to be able to successfully implement patient-centric value-based care models.