Creating Value Challenge: Seeking Bright Ideas to Reduce Waste in Health Care

PHILADELPHIA — Costs of Care and the ABIM Foundation announce the launch of the Creating Value Challenge, which seeks innovative ideas and projects for teaching and implementing high-value care among collaborative teams of clinicians, educators, quality improvement specialists, and health system administrators.

Health care professionals from any discipline and level of training are invited to submit short abstracts that describe either a project they have already implemented or an idea for a project they believe could have promise in delivering better care at a lower cost.

Entries will be accepted through January 24, 2017.

Winners will be announced in March 2017. Costs of Care and the ABIM Foundation will recognize winners at the Association of American Medical Colleges Integrating Quality (AAMC IQ) Meeting June 8–9, 2017, near Chicago. Costs of Care, along with The Leapfrog Group, will jointly recognize health systems that contribute five or more submissions to the Challenge.

Challenge inspires change

“Tools to provide better care at a lower cost are emerging from all corners of the United States, as well as from across the globe,” said Neel Shah, MD, Founder and Executive Director of Costs of Care. “Nonetheless, platforms to easily share ideas and lessons in implementing these tools are lacking. Through the Creating Value Challenge we hope to inspire and share innovations about what works in improving value in health care.”

The Challenge builds on the ABIM Foundation’s Choosing Wisely® campaign, a national effort in conjunction with Consumer Reports that encourages clinicians and patients to have conversations about avoiding unnecessary tests and treatments. While the campaign is helping change the way many clinicians practice, it is equally important for clinicians in training to learn how Choosing Wisely can serve as a foundation for providing appropriate care throughout their careers. To support this work, Costs of Care created the Teaching Value in Health Care learning network to convene leaders in medical education and training to develop engaging curriculum and spread health systems innovations.

“Physicians at all levels – from those just beginning their training to those who have been in practice for decades – are being tasked with finding new ways to deliver high-quality care to patients while reducing the use of low-value tests and treatments,” said Richard J. Baron, MD, President and CEO of the ABIM Foundation. “While efforts like the Choosing Wisely campaign have helped stimulate a national conversation on waste and overuse, the Creating Value Challenge provides an outstanding opportunity to identify ways clinicians can implement its ideals in practice.”

This year’s Creating Value Challenge entries will be reviewed by a panel of judges comprised of national health care leaders:

• Ceci Connolly, CEO, Alliance of Community Health Plans
• Sachin Jain, CEO, Caremore Health System
• Michael Millenson, President, Health Quality Advisors
• Rita Redberg, Editor-in-Chief, JAMA Internal Medicine
• Clay Johnston, Dean, Dell Medical School, University of Texas-Austin

Two previous Challenges – then known as the Teaching Value and Choosing Wisely Challenge – generated more than 150 entries and 12 winners, including the following innovations:

• 2013— Dr. Robert Fogerty, a faculty member at the Yale School of Medicine, created “I-CARE” (Interactive Cost-Awareness Resident Exercise). This exercise engages faculty and trainees in a friendly competition to create effective, lower cost care plans using traditional Morning Report structure and institutional charge data.
• 2015— A team of medical educators, Drs. Eileen Moser and Susan Glod from Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center; Drs. Sara Fazio and Grace Huang from Harvard Medical School; and Dr. Clifford Packer from Case Western Reserve University and the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center, modified the traditional SOAP note template to include a discussion of value. By embedding value consideration into a routine practice, students reported greater comfort with initiating discussions about overuse with their clinical teams.

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About the ABIM Foundation
The mission of the ABIM Foundation is to advance medical professionalism to improve the health care system. We achieve this by collaborating with physicians and physician leaders, medical trainees, health care delivery systems, payers, policy makers, consumer organizations and patients to foster a shared understanding of professionalism and how they can adopt the tenets of professionalism in practice. To learn more about the ABIM Foundation, visit www.abimfoundation.org, connect with us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

About Costs of Care
Costs of Care is a nonprofit organization that curates insights from the frontlines of health care to help delivery systems provide better care at lower cost. Connect at www.CostsOfCare.org or follow us on Twitter.

About The Leapfrog Group
Founded in 2000 by large employers and other purchasers, The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization driving a movement for giant leaps forward in the quality and safety of American health care. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey collects and transparently reports hospital performance, empowering purchasers to find the highest-value care and giving consumers the lifesaving information they need to make informed decisions. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, Leapfrog’s other main initiative, assigns letter grades to hospitals based on their record of patient safety, helping consumers protect themselves and their families from errors, injuries, accidents, and infections.

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