Accountable Care Network (ACN)

Overview

What is Accountable Care Network?

What is the Accountable Care Network (ACN)? The ACN is an accountable care organization formed by a group of health systems and hospitals working together to improve quality, reduce costs, and improve patient experience. Members of the UW Medicine ACN include Capital Medical Center, Island Hospital, MultiCare Connected Care Network, Overlake Hospital Medical Center, Peace Health, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Seattle Children’s Hospital, Skagit Regional Health, and UW Medicine.

What is an Accountable Care Organization (ACO)? An ACO is a partnership between healthcare providers and payers to reduce avoidable healthcare utilization and costs and improve quality and coordination of care.

What is UW Medicine’s role in the ACN? UW Medicine provides centralized leadership and administrative support for the ACN. Member organizations participate in committees to guide design and implementation of strategic ACN initiatives. All member bear financial risk in the contracts in proportion to the size of the ACN patient populations attributed to them.

What are some of the benefits for ACN members? As the transition to value-based reimbursement moves forward, participation in the ACN lets member organizations begin modifying how they provide care to patients at a relatively small scale, enabling them to upscale these operations as they gain additional risk-based contracts in the future. Network orgs can also collaborate to provide support and share best practices with one another.

How is the ACN governed? The ACN is led by a Steering Committee that sets the overall course for the ACN. Below the Steering Committee sit three committees aligned with the Triple Aim: Finance, Contracting and Operations; Quality and Care Transformation; and Patient Experience. These committees have representation from across the ACN network organizations. Under the committees, a range of subcommittees work to implement initiatives at an operational level and provide updates and feedback to the committees.