The National Partnership for Hospice Innovation (NPHI) announces with great enthusiasm the launch of its Innovation Lab, a targeted, coordinated effort across NPHI member programs to identify, elevate, and accelerate best practices and other resources that will enable community-based hospice programs to thrive in the face of a changing health care delivery environment. The Innovation Lab’s activities will support NPHI members in their strategic position by optimizing business planning and service offerings, while being an incubator of new models and disruptions to bend the quality and experience curve for the communities and families they serve.
The fundamental shift to population health management and value-based care payment presents both risks and opportunities for NPHI members. It is critical that NPHI’s member programs create the “next curve” to sustain their vital role in assuring ideal experiences of health and human care for all Americans.
“With so many rapid changes bringing new regulatory and payment challenges, ever-increasing direct and substitute competition, and large-scale payment reform, the time is now for us to collaborate more closely with our mission-oriented peers to ensure we are incorporating best clinical, operational, and financial practices that will enable us to fulfill the promises to the communities we serve,” said Phil Marshall, Chairman of NPHI’s Board of Directors and President & CEO of Hosparus Health.
“Our member programs are known for innovation, exceptional patient/family care experiences, and cost-effective solutions created through passion, volunteerism, creativity, and philanthropy. The ‘why’ is clear: to sustain the organizations we lead who have fundamentally transformed how our country experiences illness, aging, and grief forever and for the better. The ‘how’ is the Innovation Lab: serving as the vehicle to leverage past successes for future achievement, positioning our members to be of service in the health care delivery system of the future,” added Christy Whitney, President & CEO of HopeWest, Secretary of NPHI’s Board of Directors, and CEO Liaison to the Innovation Lab.
This collaborative effort will study the new models and approaches deployed by NPHI members and aligned organizations in response to these risks and opportunities. It will then identify effective strategies and models that strengthen the market positions of community-based providers. These best practice models and methods will be compiled in a set of educational, planning, and implementation resources to be disseminated across NPHI member programs. “We are thrilled about the opportunity to share our experiences in developing and providing advanced illness services, learning from others in their service line development, and then putting the brightest minds together to create new programs for advanced illness and end-of-life care in this country,” noted Debbie Shumway, Executive Director of Hospice of the Valley and Member of NPHI’s Board of Directors.
The Innovation Lab’s vision is that all NPHI members across the country will offer a menu of high-quality, effective, and financially sustainable services for persons with advanced illness that will transform how their communities experience aging and end-of-life. NPHI is committed to achieving that vision by leveraging the collective strength, intelligence, and resources of its members to fulfill that promise together.
“It is critical that NPHI’s member programs can leverage their decades of experience to address the full range of aging, advanced illness, and end-of-life care needs within our communities. NPHI stands ready to invest the time, effort, and resources to ensure our members continue to lead the way for many years to come by developing integrated service offerings that meet those needs in our changing health care environment,” said Tom Koutsoumpas, President & CEO of NPHI.
For more information on NPHI’s Innovation Lab, please contact Kevin Kappel at KKappel@hospiceinnovations.org