Intermountain Healthcare: Reimagined Primary Care

Intermountain is the largest healthcare provider in the Intermountain West with more than 60,000 caregivers (employees) serving communities in seven US primary states: Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Kansas, and also regularly treat patients from other parts of the Intermountain West. In addition to the services and care it offers in its physical facilities, Intermountain Healthcare also provides extensive telehealth services with over 35 telehealth programs in the western United States, further enhancing Intermountain Healthcare’s ability to provide quality-based medical care to patients across its vast geography. Intermountain has been delivering on its mission of helping people live the healthiest lives possible.

Intermountain Healthcare’s challenge was to design and implement a reimagined primary care-based approach focused on delivering the best care possible to the value-based populations for which they hold financial risk. The goal was to blend best practices and learnings from innovative and integrative models across the country to develop the processes, tools, competencies, and culture to be successful in managing risk.

Intermountain implemented RPC using a phased approach, beginning with four clinic locations in 2018, and adding clinics year-by-year. RPC practices utilize EHR data to provide near-real time information regarding health services utilized by patients to ensure smooth transitions of care and reduce low-value follow-up care; claims data is used to help identify low value care. Combined HER and claims data sets provide insights regarding coding and care gaps. Data is presented and used daily by each RPC team through Daily Huddle Dashboards, Panel Savings Dashboards, and supplemental analytics to identify patients at risk for high-cost care utilization who would benefit from targeted outreach, surface patients’ unaddressed needs, quantify the value of closing clinical care gaps, track key performance indicators, and validate cost savings through matched case control analysis.  Read more about the resulting value and lessons learned in the full case study.