Sunday, January 21, 2007

Center for Health Care Strategies and Return-on-Investment

The Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS has recently published an ROI analysis on integrated substance abuse treatment and medical care management. Of greater acute interest is their recent announcement of a Return on Investment Purchasing Institute designed to help states understand the return on investment (ROI) of various care management iniatives. Quoting from the announcement: "Through this 12-month initiative, up to eight states will receive focused training paired with intensive technical assistance around concepts and methodology for calculating ROI. Participants will evaluate the ROI potential for specific quality initiatives, analyze the implications of ROI analyses for program planning, and package ROI forecasts for use in budget requests. "

On February 16, CHCS announced its eight states.
  • Arizona
  • Colorado
  • Connecticut
  • Idaho
  • Louisiana
  • Oklahoma
  • Pennsylvania
  • Washington


CHCS was established 1995 with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Current supporters include:
  • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
  • The Annie E. Casey Foundation
  • The California HealthCare Foundation
  • The Commonwealth Fund
  • The David and Lucille Packard Foundation
  • Kaiser Permanente
  • Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
  • Schaller Anderson, Incorporated
  • United Healthcare/Evercare

The home page describes the mission as follows:

CHCS advances its mission by working directly with state and federal agencies, health plans, and providers to design and implement cost-effective strategies to improve health care quality. We help these Medicaid stakeholders implement eight Quality Action Steps that are critical to chronic care improvement. These quality strategies form the foundation of CHCS’ core initiatives — the CHCS Purchasing Institute, Best Clinical and Administrative Practices (BCAP) workgroups, and multi-stakeholder collaboratives. These collaborative-learning activities provide unique venues for state Medicaid agencies, health plans, and providers to share best practices and to work together to design programs that reward high quality care.