Atrius Health was recently named by Becker’s Hospital Review, a leading healthcare industry publication, as one of the “100 Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) to Know” in 2013. The Becker’s editorial team recognized Atrius Health for its focus on quality improvement, cost reduction and population health management.

“We are proud to join the nation’s leading ACOs on this prestigious list, which is due to the work of our dedicated team across all of Atrius Health and our collaborations with hospital and community partners,” said Marci Sindell,

Atrius Health has a long standing history of investing tens of millions of dollars in the use of electronic health records (EHR) and electronic prescribing to improve the care of our 1 million patients. Over the past year, all of our practices have attested on behalf of our eligible providers as required by the federal government’s Meaningful Use (MU) requirements. Atrius Health has reinvested the funds received back into the EHR as well as other improvements to the care of our patients.

In 2009, the Massachusetts Expert Panel on End of Life Care, established by the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS), conducted a comprehensive review of the issues surrounding end-of-life care both nationally and in the Commonwealth. It concluded that Massachusetts residents nearing the end of their lives often do not receive the care that they want or need and are unaware of the full range of care options, including hospice and palliative care services.

According to the FDA, as many as 3 billion prescriptions are written annually in the United States. About 25% of new prescriptions never make it to a pharmacy, 3% of prescriptions that are filled never get picked up and 50% of prescriptions in the US are not taken as prescribed. Approximately 125,000 deaths and 25% of hospitalization and nursing home admissions are related to medication non-adherence annually in the United States.

At Atrius Health,

Data itself does not make decisions, but when it is processed, analyzed and turned into useable reports, it becomes a powerful tool to guide decision making. This is data analytics. We use it to understand what is happening to our patients and how they are receiving care to ensure that we stay focused on our mission – keeping our patients as healthy as possible.

Data analytics informs Atrius Health clinicians, staff,

The Atrius Health groups have a team of clinical pharmacists working with our physicians, nurse practitioners, physician’s assistants, nurses and support staff to optimize the effectiveness, safety and cost of medication therapy for all patients – including Accountable Care Organization (ACO) patients.

Each of our clinical pharmacists has an advanced degree and ambulatory care clinical training/experience, and practices within our Internal Medicine and Family Medicine departments. Here, they participate in team meetings to develop specific care plans for our most medically vulnerable patients.

The following is an excerpt from an email that Dr. Gene Lindsey sent to the Atrius Health practices.

Many of you have heard via external media or internal communications that Atrius Health was one of two Pioneer Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) for 2012 that would incur a shared loss.  In full, 14 ACOs showed a loss, but 12 did not share in the loss because of the financial models they chose.