Ep #126: Health-Focused Business Groups Expand Their Scope - With Jessica Brooks

Business groups on health are helping employers understand and use data while they transition from volume purchasing to value purchasing.Jessica Brooks, CEO and Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Business Group on Health, shares her expertise on health-focused business groups; potentially a new topic for many listeners. In the past, business groups formed primarily to leverage purchasing power. Today, these coalitions are expanding their focus by using education and advocacy, in addition to the power of the purse, to push for changes in the health care industry at the macro level while bringing new insights and tools to their member employers at the local level.Jessica explains the history behind health-focused business groups and why they formed initially. She shares how these groups are bringing together key stakeholders to address challenges with health care cost, quality, and access in the marketplace. Business health care groups bring relevant parties to the table in search of workable solutions in this era of complexity surrounding the Affordable Care Act and public and private exchanges.We explore the ever-more-important role of data in employers’ decision-making as well as their latest focus to moving beyond leveraging group size for volume purchasing to a more value-based approach. Jessica also discusses the role benefit advisors play in the PBGH and how they can work together to bring about better outcomes for their mutual clients.What You’ll Learn From this Episode:A history of and need for health-focused business groups.How PBGH interacts with advisors.The four pillars of the PBGH.How the PBGH has transitioned from volume to value.The role data plays in transforming how the PBGH works with vendors.