Earlier this year, YSM and YNHHS launched a new clinically integrated network (CIN) with the name, Yale New Haven Health Clinical Affiliates, LLC. Through this structure, our ACE members, independent physician practices, and hospital and ambulatory facilities collaborate around a shared commitment to clinical quality improvement and managing the total cost of care. They also have access to a support infrastructure, which includes care management, robust data/analytics, performance improvement support, and other enterprise efforts to improve the patient experience (Access 365) and meet the highest standards of quality, safety and equity.
A wholly owned subsidiary of YNHHS, Yale New Haven Health Clinical Affiliates is a physician-led and professionally managed structure as outlined in the image below.
Overall, Yale New Haven Health Clinical Affiliates will help advance our mission to deliver high-quality, coordinated, and cost-effective care to the communities we serve by:
- Improving coordination throughout each patient’s healthcare journey
- Supporting patient access and growth through participation in CIN contracts with payers
- Raising the profile of our exceptional clinicians by highlighting our commitment to the highest quality care
- Providing access to value-based incentive models for participating clinicians
- Enhancing the ability to participate and perform well in value-based/risk-based contracts.
The CIN’s Initial Steps
Yale New Haven Health Clinical Affiliates is led by Rajlakshmi Krishnamurthy, MD, associate dean of population health at YSM and senior vice president and chief population health officer for YNHHS. The leadership team also includes Anita Arora, MD, associate CPHO; Maribeth Cabie, BCPS, executive director, Population Health; Ohm Deshpande, MD, associate CPHO and YNHHS vice president of Clinical Financial Services; and Polly VanderWoude, executive director, CIN.
During its initial performance year (2024), the CIN is focusing on the following key areas:
- Clinical Quality Program:
- Focuses on measures that will drive high-quality care and align with physician and enterprise performance opportunities, existing contracts, and best practices
- Population Health Services Function (PHSF)
- Acts as the consolidated department for population health analytics and care management
- Collaboratively uses existing technology to create and leverage analytics for continuous improvement and performance monitoring
- Ambulatory Care Management
- Includes chronic care management for patients at highest risk for adverse health outcomes and cost exacerbations
- Includes transitional care management designed for emergency department visits and post-discharge coordination for high-risk readmitted patients
- Focuses on resolving gaps in care, such as cancer screens, vaccinations, etc.
- Payer Contracting & Incentives
- Aligns value-based contract measures with the CI Program to drive superior performance
- Focuses on evolving value-based contracts to greater levels of sophistication (and risk) to earn greater rewards
- Includes an incentive model that rewards clinicians for providing high-quality and being good CIN stewards
Learn More
As progress is made with Yale New Haven Health Clinical Affiliates, additional updates will be provided. You can also learn more – and review answers to commonly asked questions – on the alignment site.