American Society of Anesthesiologists Selects Premier, Inc. to Develop Learning Collaborative

The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) has chosen Premier, Inc., a leading health care improvement company, to develop a first-of-its-kind learning collaborative for the ASA’s Perioperative Surgical Home (PSH) model of care.

ASA’s PSH is a patient-centered, physician-led, team-based practice model of coordinated care that guides a patient throughout the entire surgical experience. The collaborative is intended to bring together health care organizations to develop, pilot, and evaluate this innovative model to improve care for surgical patients from the moment surgery is planned, through recovery and discharge from a medical facility and beyond.

“ASA’s PSH learning collaborative is designed to achieve the triple aim of improving health, improving health care delivery and reducing costs,” said ASA President Jane C. K. Fitch, M.D. “Too often, perioperative care plans are variable and fragmented. The ASA PSH learning collaborative will work to achieve the goal that the entire perioperative episode is completed as one continuum of care.”

“Perioperative” generally refers to the three phases of surgery: preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative. As health reform continues to gain momentum, care redesign and payment reforms have been slow to emerge in the perioperative space. This is particularly true in comparison to other care settings like primary care, which has seen exponential growth in the Patient Centered Medical Home model over the past several years.

ASA’s PSH learning collaborative will proactively pursue care redesign strategies seeking to enhance the surgical patient’s experience, improve quality and outcomes, and reduce costs. This includes better care coordination to reduce length of stay, readmissions, and complications. The ultimate goal is to create an evidence-based “road map” for other health care organizations to spread knowledge and best practices of the PSH model.

“With more than 51 million inpatient procedures performed nationally each year, surgical services represent a major component of healthcare expenditures and a sizeable opportunity to reduce costs and improve outcomes,” said Wes Champion, senior vice president of Premier Performance Partners. “ASA’s decision to test a national learning collaborative in the perioperative space could lead to lasting improvements in costs, outcomes and experiences for patients and payers across the country. We are honored to work with them on this innovative and exciting project.”

As an experienced convener of collaboratives for healthcare organizations to improve quality and population health, Premier will develop, implement and manage the PSH learning collaborative. Specifically, Premier will provide tools, templates, advisory services and subject matter experts to help participants improve care quality and patient satisfaction, lower costs and advance toward a more coordinated care experience. National recruitment for the collaborative will begin in the spring of 2014.

In October 2013, the ASA House of Delegates strongly endorsed the development of the PSH model and a learning collaborative targeting up to 50 participating organizations.

Health care organizations interested in participating in the ASA PSH learning collaborative are invited to submit a letter of interest signed by the hospital chief executive officer to Celeste Kirschner at c.kirschner@asahq.org. The letter should address the goals the health care organization wishes to achieve by participating in the collaborative as well as a general description of the organization.