Donor Spotlight on Ballad Health Featuring Stephen P. Combs, M.D., CPE, CPHQ, FACFE, FAAP,

Vice-President and Chief Medical Officer

AMGA Foundation: How has participating in an AMGA population health initiative directly improved the care Ballad Health has provided its patients? 
 
Combs: Ballad Health Medical Associates (BHMA) found both immediate and sustained benefit from our participation in both Measure Up/Pressure Down and most recently Together 2 Goal®. Our immediate benefits arose from working with national thought leaders on the development of standardized measures, pathways, goals, and measurable patient outcomes. Engagement in these initiatives allowed us to channel the energy and time ordinarily required for development of a program into education, implementation, and most importantly patient care activities. In the long term, participation allowed our group to focus on "hardwiring" program planks in place, not only making us a cohesive, scientifically data-driven group internally, but improving the care outcomes we attained with our patients externally.
 
AMGA Foundation: Why do you think it is important to be engaged with the Foundation as we emerge from the COVID crisis?
 
Combs: We know that many patients have either delayed care due to the pandemic and/or are now engaging their clinicians via new modalities. Equitable access and value-based care delivery continue to evolve as we emerge from the pandemic. Therefore, regardless of the issue, as we move to "other side" of COVID-19, health care and our ability to deliver it has changed. I can think of no better organization with whom to work through these changes than with AMGA and the Foundation. Together, we know how to leverage knowledge and expertise to deliver the best care. This engagement is not transactional, but truly collaborative.
 
AMGA Foundation: Ballad Health is a generous Campaign for a Healthier America sponsor. How does investing in the Foundation improve your return on investment (ROI)?
 
Combs: The Foundation improves our ROI in two major ways. Ongoing collaborations allow us to standardize, implement, and continually evaluate long-term best practices, which have a direct link to improving patient care and, therefore, to our bottom line in value-based care contracting. Optimizing this return allows us to reinvest is patient care. More importantly than that though, is the professional ROI found when we both improve our groups’ cohesiveness and deliver the best of care to our patients by being part of a leading-edge national organization. Every donation is an investment that returns dividends to our group.