Cheyenne Regional Receives a $14 Million Health Care Innovation Award

Innovation Award will fund a three-year effort to create “Medical Neighborhoods” across Wyoming.

Cheyenne, Wyoming – Cheyenne Regional Medical Center announced today that it has received a $14 million Health Care Innovation Award from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. The award will power the Wyoming Integrated Care Network’s (WYICN) efforts to unite and lead health care partners in the transformation of health care delivery.

Cheyenne Regional, in partnership with the WYICN, will collaborate with strategic partners to build “medical neighborhoods” across Wyoming. Medical neighborhoods are designed to encourage the flow of information across and between clinicians and patients, resulting in well-coordinated care and exceptional patient experiences. Cheyenne Regional, the members of the WYICN, and the Innovation Partners will implement tightly focused strategies that lead to Better Health, Better Care and Lower Costs. Cost savings are estimated to be more than $33 million over the next three years.

Administration of the Innovation Award will be overseen by the Wyoming Institute of Population Health (Institute), a division of Cheyenne Regional. “Cheyenne Regional is proud to be one of 107 awardees out of approximately 3,000 applicants from across the country. Being selected pays tribute to partner efforts that started in 2010 with the Wyoming Integrated Care Network,” said Phyllis Simpson Sherard, PhD., Director of the Institute. “The Innovation Award, the strength of our Innovation Partners and the members of the WYICN, working collaboratively, will make a lasting difference in the way care is delivered in Wyoming and in the health of residents across the state.”

The Innovation Partners will deploy the following strategies within six months:

• Patient-Centered Medical Homes (PCMHs) function as the core of medical neighborhoods, providing value driven healthcare through focusing on wellness and playing a key role in facilitating care coordination, developing inter-professional care teams, developing individualized care plans for complex patients, and maintaining connections with community-based services for referral and follow-up. PCMHs will be recruited by the WYICN and trained by TransforMED®, which was founded in 2005 by the American Academy of Family Physicians.
• Virtual Pharmacists, coordinated by the University of Wyoming’s School of Pharmacy for Medication Therapy Management, will connect with PCMHs via telehealth.
• RN Care Transition Coaches will provide education and continuity of medical care as complex patients transition between hospitals and post-acute sites of care.
• Physician Desktop Solutions will facilitate increased access to specialists, improve coordination between sites of care and facilitate effective decision making.
• Wyoming Medication Donation Program, a Wyoming Department of Health program, will expand statewide to help ensure access to critical medication for low-income, un/under-insured patients.

About Cheyenne Regional Medical Center: Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, recipient of the Innovation Award, is a regional healthcare system that prides itself on delivering care at the highest standard of quality to meet the region’s growing healthcare needs. Hospital physicians and employees, state-of-the-art facilities and advanced technologies ensure patients will receive exceptional care, close to home.

About the Wyoming Institute of Population Health: Cheyenne Regional’s award winning Wyoming Institute of Population Health has a long history of powering innovations and improvements in community health care delivery and systems integration.

About the Wyoming Integrated Care Network: Wyoming Integrated Care Network has a current membership of 23 hospital and health care facilities, along with the University of Wyoming College of Health Sciences and six health care professional organizations.