Case Study: Hometown Health Lands Early HEDIS Submission with Affinitē QI

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In healthcare, intangibles are as important as tangibles.

And Hometown Health was looking for a partner as committed to care as they are.

Of course, health plans want to give their members and providers the best experiences they can deliver. And members want plans that meet their needs and have their backs. Since 1988, Nevadans have trusted Hometown Health to do both those things.

With more than 140,000 members throughout the state of Nevada and deep roots in each community it serves, Hometown Health offers a wide range of health plans to employers, individuals and families, and Medicare enrollees. They also prioritize the health and wellness of all Nevadans, donating over $1 million every year to provide free health and health education resources in the communities they serve. To the compassionate team at Hometown Health, making a genuine difference in the health and well-being of every community they serve is their mission, but in many ways, it’s also their calling – and the secret of their success.

So they were understandably nervous about switching quality improvement platforms in early 2020. What they had wasn’t quite what they needed, but would a new solution be even more complicated with less capability function at their scale? Could it offer more depth of analytics with fewer steps in the process? Would turnaround times improve? Would their new resource team be more accessible…or even less?

Was the risk of change worth the potential benefits?

Hometown Health of course needed a quality improvement (QI) solution that measured up to its sales pitch, but they also needed a partner that spoke their language at the most human levels: responsive, compassionate, transparent, willing to walk the road beside them, as well as walk a mile in their shoes – and the shoes of their stakeholders.

With that in mind, Hometown Health was looking for a new QI partner that gave them the same level of commitment they give to their communities.

A young technology company with impressively deep and vast HEDIS experience.

What excited Savannah Gonsalves, RN, MHA, Hometown Health Quality Manager, about Vital Data Technology (VDT) was not just the robust, yet uncomplicated interface of the QI product, but also who they are:

1.  A young but fast-growing team of HEDIS subject matter experts and extremely knowledgeable developers
2.  A comprehensive quality assurance process
3.  A robust QI solution with a remarkably uncomplicated interface
4.  A culture that is all about the customer experience (just like Hometown Health)

“I appreciate the energy and passion that fuels young companies,” says Gonsalves, recalling Vital Data Technology’s RFP process and initial demo. “What really set them apart for me was the fact that their measures had not needed recertifying in almost a decade. That was huge for me.”

A responsive, agile, accessible team.

Hometown Health has been partnering with Vital Data Technology for just over a year, so year-on-year data hasn’t yet shown the full impact of the change in its QI solution. Still, the difference was almost immediately evident: a large and well-staffed implementation team that responded immediately, always ready to listen, troubleshoot, resolve and anticipate issues.

The greatest impact: Successful early HEDIS submission.

This year with Affinitē QI in their arsenal, Savannah and her team submitted their HEDIS data ahead of schedule without rushing to meet the deadline like they had experienced previously.

Today, Vital Data Technology’s agile and dynamic relationship with Hometown Health has blossomed into a transparent, two-way communication channel that the Hometown Health team truly values and appreciates. Instead of being stressful, HEDIS season is now an ever-adaptive continuum with reasonable turnaround times and smoother processes that have become ongoing and manageable. Each group of Hometown Health’s stakeholders’ lives are easier and their workflows more predictable. And the VDT team’s energy has begun to shift a bit toward QI solutions that go beyond gaps in care.

“My population matters,” says Savannah, adding that VDT’s approach to customer experience shows that they understand that. “VDT’s team and staff are its biggest strength,” she said.