Editor’s note: This article is by Chris Fleisher of the Valley News, in which it was firts published Dec. 10, 2013.
LEBANON, N.H. — A Dartmouth-Hitchcock executive hired last year to help the organization create a new vision for a sustainable health care system in the Twin States is leaving at the end of the year to take a job in Boston.
Gregg Meyer will step down Dec. 31 to join Partners HealthCare as its chief clinical officer.
He is leaving Dartmouth-Hitchcock after a little more than a year and a half, having started there in May 2012 in the newly created position of executive vice president for population health and chief clinical officer.
In an email to staff last week, Dartmouth-Hitchcock President and CEO Jim Weinstein said Meyer “took on a very important role” at Dartmouth-Hitchcock and had been “unrelentingly committed to doing the right thing.”
“No matter where he is, he will continue to be our friend and a collaborator in making a difference for all patients, their families and the communities we serve,” Weinstein said in the email. “I know from our conversations that these decisions are tough, but I respect Gregg deeply and understand that this decision is the right one for him and his family.”
In a telephone interview Monday, Meyer said the decision to leave was difficult because of the “really terrific things going on up here at D-H.”
However, the opportunity to address some of the challenges facing health care providers, and on a larger scale at Partners, convinced him to leave.
“I was given an extraordinary opportunity which I don’t think is going to come my way again,” Meyer said.
Meyer worked closely with Weinstein as Dartmouth-Hitchcock looked at new models for care and studied how the health care system could lower costs while improving quality.
One of his primary charges was to steer the organization under a model of population health, a concept in which providers concentrate on improving the health outcomes of a group of people, and look at some of the social, political and environmental factors that influence their well being.
At Partners, Meyer will oversee quality and safety, two issues that he said are “nearest and dearest to my heart,” as well as population health and information technology. He will begin his new job at the end of January.
Meyer said that during his time in the Upper Valley, Dartmouth-Hitchcock made significant progress toward improving efficiency and quality. It also began working on new payment models in health care. One initiative was establishing an accountable care organization, called OneCare Vermont, with Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington and which includes Vermont’s other hospitals.
A key part of the Affordable Care Act, accountable care organizations are aimed at reining in health care spending on Medicare patients while maintaining — maybe even improving — the quality of care. The health care providers in the ACOs then split the savings with Medicare.
Although ACOs can take different forms, the same basic principle applies to all: hospitals agree to take responsibility for the cost and quality of caring for a certain group of patients, no matter what.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock launched a “Pioneer ACO” in New Hampshire in January 2012 and this year rolled out OneCare.
“When I got here, the whole notion of doing an ACO in Vermont as part of Vermont health care reform wasn’t even a glimmer in our eye,” Meyer said. “It was not even something we’d thought of.”
Now Dartmouth-Hitchcock is considering expanding the ACO concept in Vermont, doubling or even tripling the number of patients served through that model over the coming year, he said. Other significant changes during Meyer’s tenure include partnership with Harvard Pilgrim and Elliot Health System in Manchester called “Elevate Health,” which aims to improve coordinating care for patients and lower insurance premiums.
Chris Fleisher can be reached at 603-272-3229 or cfleisher@vnews.com.
