News
Discern Participates In PhRMA Lunch And Learn
July 2017
Partner Tom Valuck, MD, JD participated in a panel discussion at a recent Lunch and Learn sponsored by PhRMA. The subject of Tom’s presentation was “Quality Measurement in the Value-Based Health Care Environment.” The Lunch and Learn discussion provided perspective on the importance and use of measurement within the changing health care delivery and payment…
Discern Expands Physical Space And Staff Capabilities
July 2017
To accommodate our growing team and plans for the future, Discern Health has expanded our offices to occupy the entire second floor of our Baltimore office building. The space now provides 6,300 square feet of meeting rooms, cubicles, and offices for our more than 20 staff members. Expansion and modernization of our space is critical…
Discern Health Presents Potential Measures For Catalyst For Payment Reform’s Scorecard For Payment Reform 2.0
June 2017
Discern recently worked with Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR) to develop a list of measures for CPR’s Scorecard for Payment Reform 2.0. CPR has tracked the implementation of payment reform since 2013. CPR’s Scorecard 1.0 looked at the breadth and depth of payment reform in the U.S. health care market. CPR will use Scorecard 2.0…
Marissa Schlaifer Joins Discern Health As Senior Advisor Focused On Pharmacy Management Strategies
June 2017
Discern Health welcomes Marissa Schlaifer, RPH, MS, as a senior advisor focused on quality measurement and value, specifically in patient-facing pharmacy value chain management. Our clients will benefit from Marissa’s 30-plus years of experience in pharmacy benefit management, managed care pharmacy, and community pharmacy. Most recently, Marissa served as the head of policy at CVS…
Health Affairs Blog Post Highlights Discern’s Work On Serious Illness Care
June 2017
Discern Partner Tom Valuck, Josh Rising of Pew Charitable Trusts, and Janet Corrigan of the Moore Foundation, recently authored a blog post for Health Affairs titled “Building Additional Serious Illness Measures Into Medicare Programs.” The Health Affairs blog post describes the output of a multi-stakeholder panel of 16 experts who identified and prioritized measure gaps…
Discern Project Director Russ Montgomery Presents At Population Health Conference In Switzerland
May 2017
Russ Montgomery, PhD, MHS, a project director at Discern Health, recently attended a Population Health Conference in Bern, Switzerland. The focus of this conference was to identify transatlantic partnerships on high-priority health policy topics between the United States and Switzerland. During the conference, Russ presented an overview of US health care payment models in a…
Discern Managing Partner Presents At University Of Maryland, Baltimore County
May 2017
Discern Health Managing Partner Guy D’Andrea was a guest lecturer at a graduate-level health IT policy and administration class at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The focus of Guy’s presentation was the health information technology (IT) aspects of the new Medicare payment programs for physicians. As Guy described to the class, health IT is…
Discern Completes Project With Holy Cross Hospital
May 2017
Discern Health recently completed a project advising Holy Cross Hospital, a community hospital in Maryland with over 400 beds, on how to reduce unplanned 30-day readmissions. Holy Cross Hospital is a part of the Trinity Health system and has approximately 35,000 inpatient visits each year. To identify the hospital’s opportunities for improvement, Discern reviewed the…
Discern Health And NPC Host Webinar On Strategies To Improve Oncology Measurement
May 2017
On April 26, Discern Health partnered with the National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC) to host a webinar discussing the findings of the recently published “Improving Oncology Quality Measurement in Accountable Care” white paper. The webinar, which was moderated by NPC Vice President of Health Services Research Kimberly Westrich and featured Discern Health Partner Tom Valuck, discussed…
ONC Roundtable Discussion: Innovations in the Use of Electronic Health Data For eMeasurement And Quality Improvement Web Meeting
April 2017
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), supported by Discern Health, will host a roundtable discussion on opportunities to foster innovation in electronic data exchange for eMeasurement and quality improvement. National thought leaders will share their experiences and insights about innovative approaches. The public is invited to participate and comment. The…