Health Care Executives Say Collaboration Improves Outcomes, But Find Success Elusive

Health care industry executives’ understanding of the need to collaborate and the challenges they face in working together are explored in a new report from Quintiles based on a global survey of biopharmaceutical, payer and provider executives.

The Collaboration Mandate is the first in a series of three thought leadership publications based on independent surveys of more than 300 healthcare executives in the US, Italy, France, Germany, Spain and the UK. The series expands upon Quintiles’ annual New Health Report, released over the past three years.

“Stakeholders are moving closer to operating as a system in which aligning goals and integrating data will improve their probability of success,” said John Doyle, Dr.P.H., senior vice president and managing director, Consulting at Quintiles. “Two-thirds of executives expect to forge long-term agreements with payers, and nearly 80 percent of executives anticipate strategic alliances with health care systems in the next three to five years. This promise of an interconnected system will help stakeholders achieve the triple aim—enhancing a patient’s health care experience; improving health at the population level; and reducing the cost of health care.”

Among the insights, The Collaboration Mandate found:

• Payers, providers and biopharma agree they need to be better aligned with other stakeholders in the health care industry, yet they have made little progress to date toward this goal. Only 16 to 19 percent of survey respondents said they were “mostly aligned” with other stakeholders, while one-fourth say they are “not very” or “not at all” aligned.
• More than 70 percent of all stakeholders believe transparency around data sources and information sharing across stakeholder groups is “very important” or “critically important” to the success of an interoperable health care system. Yet a large percentage of respondents are unwilling to be transparent. US payers and providers gave their own segments of the industry the highest marks—54 percent and 51 percent respectively said they were “extremely” or “very willing” to be transparent, compared to 37 percent of biopharma and just 18 percenta
• More than 8 of 10 biopharma executives and 99 percent of payer executives in the US feel that increased engagement with providers and health systems will be beneficial to their organization.

Data from Quintiles’ 2012 New Health Report showed that payers in both the US and UK want increased involvement in every phase of the drug development process. In a general comparison of previous responses to this year’s survey, there is a clear demand by payers and providers to interact more effectively with the biopharmaceutical industry about the drug development process.

Transformation to a systems-oriented, value-driven environment is a difficult but necessary step in the evolution of biopharma,” added Doyle. “It will require astute leaders who are able to drive culture change in their own organizations as well as generate support across the industry for a more interoperable and transparent development environment. The winners will be those who build trust, align incentives, and share common goals to reduce costs and improve patient outcomes.

The report outlines recommendations for biopharma to improve their collaboration to benefit business and improve patient outcomes. Key recommendations include:

• Diversify partnerships to drive innovation. Biopharma leaders must seek out opportunities to partner with diverse stakeholders from across the health care continuum. Ideally, these opportunities will stretch comfort zones beyond the traditional regulatory partnerships, with the promise of innovation in exchange for transparency and a willingness to work collaboratively for mutual benefit.
• Build the roadmap together. Stakeholders must work together to align goals to replace competing incentives with process efficiencies. When collaboration has a destination, every individual heads in the same direction, resulting in a more effective product and better outcomes.
• Foster—and use—feedback. Leaders must communicate results and feedback regularly across the stakeholder community to build trust and foster a commitment to continuous learning that allows for ongoing design improvements.

About the report

The Collaboration Mandate is based on a survey of biopharmaceutical executives, managed care executives and providers in the US, and payer organization executives in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. Market Probe conducted the survey on behalf of Quintiles and was responsible for all survey design, data analysis and data reporting. Data for the survey were collected online between 30 April and 30 May, 2013. Survey sample respondents included: 102 biopharmaceutical executives at the vice president level and above; 68 managed care executives in the US at the director level and above; 75 executives (director or above) from European payer organizations; and 53 executives from US provider organizations.

http://www.quintiles.com/collaborationmandate/