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Closing Gaps in Care: Innovative Approaches to Achieving Quality Goals

Closing Gaps in Care: Innovative Approaches to Achieving Quality Goals

Julianne Eckert

Director of Quality
Improvement, Clover Health

Julianne is responsible for creating an organizational data-driven innovative strategy that breaks the traditional model of healthcare to make it easier for providers and patients to deliver and receive healthcare.

She has spent her life using her personal and career experiences to help drive her mission as a patient advocate by driving health plan quality improvement strategy to prevent vulnerable populations from falling through the cracks by designing data and forward-thinking programs that enable patients to easily navigate the complex matrices of healthcare and insurance.  As a Registered Nurse (RN), daughter, mother and friend, she has seen firsthand how people find it difficult in understanding how to care for themselves in a way that helps optimize their health outcomes or understanding their insurance benefits. She understands and has worked closely in designing strategies that bring care to patients in an easy and consumable format which breaks the traditional model of the patient seeking out the doctor for care. While her focus is on preventative care and ensuring safe and successful transitions through the care continuum, she also heavily focuses on improving patient experience with their health plan, providers and the services that they receive.

She understands that there is no single strategy that works for everyone and may even look different from one county to the next, so she continues to drive herself and her teams using root causal analysis and data-driven insights to better understand populations and their unique needs to provide the most comprehensive program that touches every patient, not just “most” patients. She has sweeping subject matter experience in CMS innovation models, Stars program, NCQA HEDIS/CAHPS, health equity, as well as, national and international leadership in driving laser-focused strategies to improve health plan performance and member outcomes/experience.

She received her Bachelor’s in Nursing at Barnes Jewish Goldfarb College of Nursing and is currently completing her MBA at University of Texas. She holds multiple certifications in Organizational Change Management, Case Management and also Managed Care.  She is an avid mentor and career coach believing it is her mission to develop our next generation of leaders.

Jeslie Jacob

Divisional Vice President,
Provider Performance |
Provider Analytics,
Reporting and Connectivity,
BCBS of Illinois

In this role, Jeslie is responsible for developing and executing the organization’s strategies to enable the adoption of enhanced reporting, analytics, and data exchange capabilities to improve health outcomes, reduce costs, and enhance the quality of care for more than 16 million members across five states.

Paula Leclair

U.S. General Manager,
Healthy.io

Paula has over 20 years’ experience in healthcare. Most recently she was Executive Director and General Manager of Outpatient at Glytec. Previously she was Head of Operations at Onduo and President and CEO of Telecare, where she directed the company’s successful acquisition by BioTelemetry. Paula has an MBA from Bentley University and an MA in Healthcare Delivery Science from Dartmouth College.

Nicole Lowery

Director of Population Health Strategy, Office of Health
Affairs and Advocacy, Humana

Nicole has over 13 years of experience in the health care industry. She is responsible for Humana’s social determinant of health (SDOH) strategy, internal business integration, physician strategy and identification of SDOH benefit opportunities. This work directly supports Humana’s mission to help improve the health of the communities it serves by making it easier for people to achieve their best health.

Nicole joined Humana in October 2006. During her time with Humana, she gained expertise in commercial operations, process development, provider development, trend oversight and creation of physician focused programs.

Closing Gaps in Care: Innovative Approaches to Achieving Quality Goals

Health plans and providers lose money through missed care delivery opportunities. Care gaps result in delayed diagnoses, reduced healthcare access and lower treatment compliance, which contribute to higher rates of morbidity, worsening medical conditions, lower quality of life, and even loss of life.

Healthcare organizations have many incentives to close the gaps in care including saving money and improving revenue. CMS encourages Medicare plans to meet or exceed quality standards by enabling them to claw back withhold amounts if they meet annual gap closure targets.

By deploying a proactive, year-round strategy that aligns data analytics with a focused approach for addressing gaps in care, healthcare organizations can turn routine quality measurement into a strategic advantage. This panel will identify innovative solutions and opportunities toward closing care gaps and driving quality improvement.

Topics include:

  • Understand the impact of quality scores including star Ratings, HEDIS, CAHPS, HOS and other quality measures
  • Identifying and utilizing quality data
  • The roles health equity and SDOH play in health outcomes and gap closure
  • Using telehealth and virtual care to engage members and close gaps in care
  • Tools and technologies you need to improve quality

Julianne Eckert

Director of Quality
Improvement, Clover Health

Jeslie Jacob

Divisional Vice President,
Provider Performance |
Provider Analytics,
Reporting and Connectivity,
BCBS of Illinois

Paula Leclair

U.S. General Manager,
Healthy.io

Nicole Lowery

Director of Population Health Strategy, Office of Health
Affairs and Advocacy, Humana

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Excellent overview of value and importance of video marketing; as a medical director myself, it opened my eyes to various opportunities for our health system to improve.

— Gerard Isenberg, MD, Chief Medical Quality Officer, University Hospital Cleveland Medical Center

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— Julianne Eckert, Director, Quality Improvement, Clover Health

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