NEHI

NEHI (Network for Excellence in Health Innovation, formerly New England Healthcare Institute)^[1] is a member-based, non-partisan research and policy organization dedicated to finding innovative solutions to urgent health care problems. NEHI harnesses the collective commitment of their members, conducts evidence-based research and drives change by collaborating with private and public decision makers.

History

NEHI was founded in 2002 as the "New England Healthcare Institute" with 21 founding members.^[2] Today it has more than 80 member companies representing the different sectors of health care. Founded on the belief that changing health care requires leadership, vision and collaboration, NEHI has helped foster a new mindset by creating a forum where all health care innovators can identify, debate and seek solutions in order to transform health care. In 2002, Wendy Everett became the organization’s president and Valerie Fleishman^[3] was hired as its executive director. Currently, NEHI has published more than 20 publications regarding innovative ways to improve health care nationally. Its first report, Economic Contributions of the Health Care Industry to New England,^[4] was published in 2003. In 2004, NEHI created and published two reports on innovative technologies to treat cancer and heart failure. In 2005, NEHI established a partnership with The Boston Foundation for “The Greater Boston Health Care Economy” project.^[5] In 2008, NEHI published the first reports ever to identify areas to reduce wasteful spending and inefficiencies in health care. In January, 2011 the organization officially dropped the acronym expansion referencing a regional affiliation and opened up offices in Washington, DC and San Francisco. NEHI has since made further efforts to garner national presence with a 2014 name expansion to NEHI (Network for Excellence in Health Innovation).

Research Programs

Innovation Barometer: The NEHI Innovation Barometer was released at the 2012 NEHI Innovation Conference in partnership with Ernst & Young. Opinion leaders who were surveyed point to innovation as the key to solving the nation’s health care problems. They ranked poor access to health care as the single most important challenge in need of new thinking, but also believe that innovation is necessary to contain health care costs without resorting to cutbacks in coverage or services.

Healthy People Healthy Economy: As part of developing a national health and wellness model, NEHI has partnered with leaders in its own backyard to develop a statewide public‐private coalition to confront the rise of preventable chronic disease. The coalition’s goal is to make Massachusetts a national leader in health promotion and wellness, and measure the program’s success for scalability in other parts of the country.

Waste and Inefficiency: With cost control a major focus of health reform, health care leaders and policymakers at every level are seeking opportunities to rein in the rising costs of health care. Key to this effort is the elimination of wasteful spending and inefficiencies in the delivery of care, which account for $700 billion or a full third of the nation’s health care spending. Building off its report, "How Many More Studies Will It Take?," NEHI created an innovative educational campaign aimed at providing health care leaders with actionable ways to reduce spending without lowering quality. Bend the Curve has identified specific policy actions for reducing up to $521 billion of wasteful health care spending in seven critical areas. At the core of the Bend the Curve campaign is the Health Care Leader’s Guide to High Value Health Care, which contains policy briefs illustrating the problem and solutions in each area of waste along with case studies of successful strategies in the field.

Patient Medication Adherence: One of NEHI’s objectives is to catalyze action for systemic improvement of patient medication adherence in the U.S. health care system. Since 2009 NEHI has become a nationally‐recognized thought leader on policy relative to patient medication adherence, and convened key stakeholder groups, including physicians, pharmacists, health plans, patient advocates and the pharmaceutical industry.

Comparative Effectiveness Research: NEHI’s program on comparative effectiveness research (CER) focuses on improving the dissemination of CER findings, and the role that the newly created Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) can play in ensuring the country’s new investment in CER studies yields usable research for patients and clinicians in a reasonable amount of time. NEHI voiced recommendations to top officials at AHRQ, HHS and members of PCORI board of Governors.

Computerized Physician Order Entry: In February 2008, NEHI released Saving Lives, Saving Money: The Imperative for Computerized Physician Order Entry in Massachusetts Community Hospitals. The report featured a clinical and financial baseline study of Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) systems and their impact on reducing medication errors. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts’ cited the report in its decision to offer incentives encouraging all member hospitals to adopt CPOE systems by 2012. Later that same year the Massachusetts legislature passed health care legislation mandating hospitals implement CPOE systems by 2012 as a condition for receiving their license.

Medical Innovation and Health Information Technology: NEHI’s identifies and evaluates valuable innovations that are under adopted despite their potential to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs. NEHI has contributed to the evidence base on both the clinical and financial benefits for tele-ICU technology to improve the quality and reduce the cost of ICU care in the U.S. In May 2011, an article in JAMA described the outcomes and results from the NEHI study at University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center (UMMMC). In 2011, NEHI received a grant from the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) to examine the potential of tele‐ICU technology to improve access, quality and cost of ICU care in California. In another project with CHCF, NEHI identified eleven emerging technologies that have the potential to improve care and lower costs for chronic disease patients, especially those in at-risk populations.

Founders

NEHI is led by Chief Executive Officer Wendy Everett, ScD, and Executive Director, Valerie Fleishman. It was founded by a group of high-profile health care leaders:

• Henri Termeer, then-CEO, Genzyme
• Joseph B. Martin, MD, PhD, then Dean of Harvard Medical School
• Sam Thier, MD, then CEO, Partners HealthCare
• Fred Telling, PhD, then VP of Corporate Policy and Strategic Management, Pfizer
• Charlie Baker, CEO, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care

Members

As of April 2014, NEHI’s members include:

References