Merck, Premier expand collaboration to co-develop and test solutions to help improve patient care and wellness

In 2016, Merck and Premier agreed to collaborate to develop and assess solutions that promote wellness and better care for specific groups of at-risk patients across the continuum. The organizations have now launched two projects under this collaboration model. One is a preventive care model that seeks to improve adolescent and adult vaccination rates. The other is a chronic disease model that includes a new focus on type 2 diabetes patients at risk of hypoglycemia, as well as osteoporosis identification and treatment (as announced in 2016). 

“Our expanded collaboration allows us to more effectively support health systems and clinicians that are evolving from volume to value-based models, but lack adequate prevention and wellness solutions,” said Dr. Mimi Huizinga, M.D., chief health information officer at Premier. “We’ve been working with Merck to design data-driven interventions for some of the top population health challenges facing our country, and we’re eager to start testing them in the real-world.” 

The vaccination and chronic care models combine the improvement expertise and technical capabilities of Premier with Merck’s education and therapeutic area expertise. The companies are now developing plans with interested health systems to test these models on the frontline, in real-world settings. 

Immunization is considered one of the most important public health achievements of the last century, but vaccination rates among adults and adolescents remain low in the US. The vaccination solution will calculate vaccination rates, and provide performance reports and education to help providers increase vaccination levels among adults and adolescents. 

“Vaccination administration happens across the continuum of care, which can create challenges for health care providers to track patient progress. The ability to use Premier’s analytics platform allows for aggregation of data from multiple care sites so that overall performance can be monitored,” said Lisa French, associate vice president, strategy and commercial model innovation, Merck. 

Dr. Huizinga added, “Combining this care management technology with educational resources from Merck will help ensure that adult and adolescent vaccines reach more individuals who need them.” 

The chronic care solution currently targets two disease areas, osteoporosis and type 2 diabetes. It is estimated that nearly 30 million people are living with diabetes in the US, and many require medical intervention to treat hypoglycemia every year. Additionally, there are approximately 10 million Americans with osteoporosis, which is estimated to be responsible for two million broken bones and $19 billion in US health care costs each year. 

Merck and Premier will develop core sets of measures for patients at-risk for these conditions across multiple sites of care. In both cases, they will use a cloud-based application to support guideline-based care. For example, the hypoglycemia application will collect information from patients regarding their hypoglycemia symptoms to improve the care team’s understanding of the patient’s current state with the goal of improving the overall management of their type 2 diabetes. 

The vaccination and chronic care model solutions will be tested within volunteer Premier member health systems. Merck and Premier welcome interested health care organizations to inquire about participation. 

“Chronic diseases account for the vast majority of health care costs in the US and vaccination rates for adults and adolescents are low, leaving millions of Americans unprotected from preventable diseases,” said French. “Developing prevention programmes and other interventions that health systems can implement as part of their population health management strategies can go a long way toward helping improve patient care and wellness.” 

The financial terms of the collaboration were not disclosed. 

Merck, premier expand collaboration, improve patient care, wellness