LSU HSC and Peoples Health form partnership

Peoples Health, a Medicare Advantage organization, has partnered with the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans in an alliance they’re calling the Center for Healthcare Advancement. For Peoples Health, access to LSU’s expertise will help the organization create better programs for managing the care of its patients throughout southeast Louisiana, including the Baton Rouge area, and measure the outcomes of those programs. The LSU School of Medicine will be compensated for physicians’ consultations within the program, officials say, and will benefit from the research that will be collected from the company’s 55,000 members as the chronic care programs are implemented. Both sides say the state as a whole, which consistently ranks near the bottom of the nation in health outcomes, will benefit as the alliance discovers better ways to treat patients with complex medical issues. “Here in Louisiana, I think we are collectively tired of being 49th,” says Peoples Health CEO Carol Solomon. “This is an incubator for the best ways [to improve outcomes].” —David Jacobs