Acentrus Specialty™, an Integrated Care Network and health system solution for specialty pharmacy, and Loopback Analytics, a leading provider of data-driven solutions for hospitals and health systems, have reached a collaboration agreement to build the nation’s largest network of health systems with specialty pharmacy operations.
“Health systems have data to track pharmacy dispensing, case management, claims and clinical encounters,” said Neil Smiley, Chief Executive Officer at Loopback Analytics. “By linking these data sources and applying advanced analytics, hospitals and health systems can identify areas with greatest opportunity to grow their specialty pharmacy business and drive continuous improvement in patient outcomes.”
The collaboration provides an unprecedented level of clinical data analytics for their specialty pharmacy clients.
“The Acentrus Specialty network, combined with the deep data capabilities of Loopback Analytics, enables objective and standardized benchmarks to improve patient care at a scale and breadth that has never been assembled before,” said George Zula, vice president, Acentrus Specialty.
The collaboration brings access to the Loopback platform to Acentrus clients. These services include:
- Market share analytics for specialty drugs
- Specialty pharmacy operational outcomes including accreditation metrics
- Clinical outcomes and best practice identification
- Data-driven campaigns and programs for targeted therapeutic categories
The Loopback platform harmonizes disparate datasets and provides the analytics and tools to create a roadmap for implementing a successful specialty pharmacy.
Acentrus brings together health systems and pharmaceutical manufacturers into a network that provides patients access to specialty pharmaceuticals, cost controls to make product management more efficient, and data analytics to improve efficiency and production. Acentrus enhances specialty pharmacy access and control for health systems; participation is open to organizations of all sizes and types, regardless of GPO affiliation.
Specialty Pharmacy Background
Specialty pharmacy is a drug distribution channel designed to handle drug therapies that are high cost, complicated to administer and/or require high touch shipping and handling. It is an area of the fastest growth sector in pharmacy, with 1 to 2 percent of all claims contributing to 50 to 60 percent of all expenses. Specialty drugs provide treatments for complex, chronic and rare diseases, such as cancer, hemophilia, HIV, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.
Specialty drugs are often patient-administered oral or injectable medications, or provider-administered infused drugs. They often have considerable risk of side effects and require significant patient care management. These drugs are typically extremely expensive, and have limited access to certain hospitals through Limited Drug Distribution networks (LDDs) established by manufactures. Specialty pharmacy represented 40 percent of $404 billion prescription drug spend in 2016. In 2020, specialty drugs are expected to reach 55 percent of all drug spend.
Health systems can find it challenging to grow limited drug distribution and expand payer access while managing a specialty pharmacy and related clinical documentation. Gaps in specialty drug access can undermine performance in value-based contracts and disrupt patient continuity of care.
With the specialty pharmacy category growing at such a fast pace, the Acentrus program brings together hospitals and health systems, manufacturers and payers to form an integrated care network; Acentrus creates the linkage between the supplier, payer and provider to provide access to life-saving medications to patients.
About Acentrus Specialty
Acentrus Specialty is the Integrated Care Network and health system solution for specialty pharmacy, addressing the largest and fastest growing area of health care expenditures by empowering members to deliver exceptional, cost-effective, locally-integrated care. This is accomplished through a comprehensive, coordinated portfolio of services and specialty pharmacy products, as well as member sharing of clinical and operational best practices. The client network of 97 health systems is made up of 530 hospitals comprised mostly of Academic Medical Centers and Integrated Delivery Networks, serving 4.2 million inpatient admissions annually, treated by 159,000 physicians. Follow Acentrus on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/acentrus-specialty or on the web at www.acentrusrx.com.
About Loopback Analytics
Loopback Analytics enables health systems to proactively identify at-risk populations, match patients to appropriate services and evaluate the impact of interventions on clinical and economic outcomes. The Loopback Rx platform enables health system pharmacies to improve patient outcomes and accelerate growth of the specialty pharmacy business. For more information, visit www.loopbackanalytics.com.
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