When Phuong Dinh was in grade school she returned with her parents to visit the small village in Vietnam where she was born. It was there she had an experience that changed the path of her life.
“I heard of an expectant mother who needed a caesarean section but because the father couldn’t sell his house in time to raise the money for the operation, she died with her unborn baby.” says Phuong.
“It was very painful to realize someone couldn’t get the health care they needed just because of finances.” That experience inspired Phuong to help change lives for the better and enter into the health care field.
Phuong Dinh manages a value-based, patient-centered program at University of Colorado Medicine in Denver. Much of her work as an administrator is focused on population health and helping primary care and internal medicine health clinics transform their practices.
"I personally feel disease prevention is the key” says Phuong. “The majority of the cost and burden of health care in the United States is due to preventable conditions, like diabetes and hypertension. Many cancers can be prevented as well, if we do early screenings like colonoscopy, mammography PSA tests.”
Phuong and the University of Colorado Medicine are creating models of value-based health care, for example the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) from the CMS Innovation Center. Today, patients pay a fee every time they interact with the health care system, which is also the revenue source for health care providers. Value-based care explores different models such as shared savings or a lump sum payment before actual care is needed.
The goal, Phuong says, is to provide health care at a lower cost, with better clinical quality of care, a better experience for the health care provider and a higher quality patient experience.
With rapidly changing definitions of value-based care and possible solutions, Phuong found she had to develop the skill to pivot quickly. “I had to get into the mindset that this is my way of life and that my environment is going to be constantly changing. To bring value to my organization, I realized I needed to adapt and gather and organize information quickly and be able to deliver it” she says.
The Covid-19 pandemic pointed the way to an opportunity in health care, in the area of “telehealth” – providing health-related services and information via technology, including contact, monitoring, advice and reminders. Telehealth has been around for a long time, but Phuong discovered the pandemic has provided the push to move the process along.
“Telehealth is super important” she says. “In the past transportation was a huge issue for a lot of patients and a barrier to getting care that they needed. Especially if they are elderly and with economic hardships, some patients needed hours, to take three or four buses just to visit a provider. With telehealth we are able to bring the services to where patients are, and we can get more care to them” says Phuong.
Working toward profound change in the way health care is provided and paid for is both demanding and challenging. Phuong learned that collaborating and listening are the key skills to bring different sides closer together.
“I work with everyone across our health care organization as well as our payers, those outside the organization and our external partners. You need to have the ability to listen because so many different perspectives are brought to the table.”
And she discovered the ability to be creative and keep an open mind about making improvements is essential. “There are always new and innovative ways of looking at things. You have to be able to say, this might be the next best answer.”
