At Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island (BCBSRI), our overarching goal is to make healthcare affordable and simple for Rhode Islanders. We work to achieve this objective by delivering on a number of important initiatives intended to support the triple aim of enhancing patient experience, improving quality and outcomes, and controlling costs. But transforming the way healthcare is delivered and paid for in Rhode Island isn’t something we can do alone. It takes teamwork—lots of it.

Fortunately, there are many providers across our state who share a similar vision and are willing, active partners when it comes to thinking differently about ‘the system’ and offering ideas that can help make it work better for everyone. One example of this collaboration in action was our inaugural Provider MET Summit, which was held recently at our 500 Exchange Street office in downtown Providence.

MET stands for “medical expense trend,” and BCBSRI has a program dedicated to bending the trend and reducing unnecessary medical costs through the identification, oversight, execution, and monitoring of savings opportunities. Our MET team started an annual MET Summit three years ago to involve BCBSRI employees throughout the organization in these activities. As it turned out, a winning submission from the 2017 MET Summit was to hold a similar event for our provider partners, so that we could leverage their expertise and tap into the great ideas they have. And that’s what we did.

Healthcare providers from across the state submitted first-round application ideas back in the spring. From that list, nine were accepted for presentation at the Provider MET Summit. Providers had about 8-10 minutes to present their ideas, which was followed by 2-3 minutes of Q&A. After a thoughtful review process, the following three ideas received the most votes by our selection committee and will move on to a scoping and validation session:

• Mobile Integrated Health Pilot
Presenter: Dr. Bryan Choi, University Emergency Medicine Foundation

• Geri RADE (Reducing Adverse Drug Events)
Presenter: Dr. Elizabeth Goldberg, University Emergency Medicine Foundation

• Spine Care: Moving from Disarray to Community Pathway
Presenter: Dr. Donald Murphy, Rhode Island Spine Center

While these ideas were the ones chosen to move forward this time around, it’s not necessarily the end of the line for the other ideas. The submissions that did not receive the top votes are still worthy of further exploration, and I have already reached out to the submitting providers to continue discussions.
Based on the experience this year and the quality of all the innovative submissions we received, I expect the Provider MET Summit to become a new BCBSRI tradition.

Matthew J. Collins, M.D., is the vice president of clinical integration at BCBSRI.