News

Contact: Maria Ramirez

Last week, Cascade Health Alliance was a finalist for the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network's (OEN) "Game Changer" award. Out of thirty-eight companies nominated, four were chosen as finalists. A banquet was held at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland to honor all finalists and winners.

Cascade Health Alliance (CHA) was nominated for its innovative partnership program with Oregon Mobile Healthcare (OMH), which brings hospital discharge follow-up medical services to rural patients. CHA faced stiff competition from the other finalists at the OEN annual awards ceremony last Wednesday.

The Game Changer award honors both non-profit and for-profit enterprises that offer a novel solution to a social problem, including a demonstrated commitment to impact that is central to the mission of the business, and a compelling answer to the question, "Why is your solution better than existing solutions?"

"I am honored and humbled that our team was selected as one of the finalists of this Game Changer award," said Tayo Akins, CHA's President and CEO. "My gratitude goes to our Case Management Director, Diane Barr, and our partner OMH for being the brain and engine, respectively, behind this initiative. We are very appreciative to OEN and its judges for recognizing us and our effort in this category."

The CHA and OMH "gap care" program is an in-home follow-up service for people recently discharged from the hospital. This program allows the OMH team to reach out to discharged individuals to help them figure out new or changed medications, and to offer other interventions to reduce hospital readmissions and emergency room visits. The gap-care solution allows medical professionals to go to patients, rather than patients needing to go see a medical professional. That helps remove barriers to health for patients, especially for the people that potentially need access to health care the most.

"Using this initiative as part of our transition of care and case management program has been very beneficial for CHA and our partner OMH," Akins said. "Our goal was to create something transformational and innovative using existing solutions to drive significant performance improvement. This program allowed us to change the landscape of how we communicate and engage with our members post-discharge from the hospital that is more efficient than traditional methods, while also reducing costs and improving the quality of care. This initiative has helped to enhance our coordination of care, patient education, improve communication with our members, reduce hospital readmission, and reduce emergency room visits.

"We believe the future of all patient-to-doctor relationship will not always be in a clinic setting. Due to social determinants of health in Klamath County, we have to meet our members at the point of care especially for basic medical services. Our initiative can enhance and support services to our busy primary care doctors who are limited in our community," Akins said.

Akins and the rest of the CHA team offer their congratulations to the other finalists, and especially to the winner, Good Clean Love.