SACRAMENTO, CA – Sutter Health, which serves patients in more than 100 Northern California cities and towns, joins more than a dozen health systems in the High Value Healthcare Collaborative (HVHC) – a project that will share comparative data to glean new ways to improve clinical outcomes while reducing healthcare costs.

Data analytics are facilitated through The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, the coordinating arm of the HVHC. The Dartmouth Institute, home to the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, has more than 20 years of experience analyzing complex Medicare claims data and disseminating the findings.

[See also: Healthcare systems launch pioneering data-exchange collaborative.]

"In the past several years Sutter Health has made demonstrable improvements in how we deliver healthcare to our patients and communities – improving quality while also making care more accessible and affordable," said Pat Fry, president and CEO of Sutter Health. "I'm pleased our network has been selected to participate in the HVHC. It's a unique opportunity to collaborate with like-minded health systems across the U.S. to learn how we can bring even more value to our patients."

[See also: Sutter Health to spend $50M to help docs with EHRs.]

The HVHC was established in December 2010 by The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, the Mayo Clinic, Denver Health, Intermountain Healthcare, Dartmouth-Hitchcock and the Cleveland Clinic.

Through a rigorous nomination and review process, Sutter Health and nine additional health providers were selected to join the collaborative by the founding members. Selection criteria included having strong research and quality improvement processes, a robust health information technology infrastructure, a commitment of personnel, operational, and financial resources, and demonstrated experience in collaboration across institutions.

HVHC members are:

• Baylor Health Care System
• Beaumont Hospitals
• Cleveland Clinic
• Dartmouth-Hitchcock
• Denver Health
• Intermountain Healthcare
• MaineHealth
• Mayo Clinic
• Providence Health and Services
• Scott & White Health Care
• Sutter Health
• The Dartmouth Institute
• UCLA Health System
• University of Iowa Health Care
• Virginia Mason Medical Center

"We welcome these new partners and the experience, insights, and information they will bring to the Collaborative," said Robert Nesse, MD, CEO of Mayo Clinic Health System and member of Mayo's Board of Trustees. "We need to learn from each other and put systems in place that ensure every patient gets the very best, most appropriate care, every time."

The HVHC will initially focus on nine increasingly prevalent condition/disease-specific areas that have wide variation in rates, costs, and outcomes – total knee replacement, diabetes, asthma, hip surgery, heart failure, perinatal care, depression, spine surgery and weight loss surgery.  Additional high-variation, high-cost conditions that affect diverse populations may be added over time.