Nine Resources to Kickstart Your VBC Journey

Any journey, especially one as winding, complex, and meaningful as the journey toward value-based oral health care (VBOHC), starts the same way — with a step.

“We are all at different points in reforming and leading value-based health care efforts,” said Kristen Simmons, PhD, MHA, RDH, former chief operating officer at Willamette Dental Group, in a CareQuest Institute webinar on October 20. “At the end of the day, value-based health care is reform based upon concrete structures, processes, and outcomes leading to better quality and bending the cost curve.”

Nevertheless, how do we get those structures and processes to achieve those outcomes?

As part of the webinar, “Are You Ready for the Transition to Value-Based Care?,” Simmons presented a three-phase framework — exposure (walk), capacity building (jog), and responsibility (run) — to move from theory to practice. Questions to consider in the “walk phase,” for example, include “Do you need a project manager?” and “Can existing staff launch the project?”

“The walk phase is when you contemplate, plan, and advocate for the advancement of VBOHC,” Simmons said. “It creates a clear understanding of current need and where you want to go.”

More than 300 oral health professionals started to explore those needs in the webinar, which also featured two CareQuest Institute experts: Rebekah Mathews, MPA, vice president of health improvement, and Danielle Apostolon, program manager. All three have worked with several organizations in the early phases of the transition.

“No one size fits all,” Simmons said. “The exploration phase must be sufficient to have a plan, budget, timelines, responsibilities, reporting structures, and most importantly, your commitment to the ownership of the processes.”

Together, the three experts highlighted nine resources in three different categories that are especially helpful in the “walk phase” when organizations are trying to assess their readiness to transition to OHVBC.

The Basics of Value-Based Oral Health Care

• What are the value-based programs? A webpage from CMS that highlights the “why” behind VBC, including the five original VBC programs and associated timelines.
• “The wicked problem of the oral health care system.” This article appeared in the Journal of Public Health Dentistry in 2020. “This article includes a graphic that helps visualize elements that are considered vital to driving the evolution of VBOHC with equity at its core,” Apostolon said. “The article also explains oral health transformation requires multifaceted solutions involving a multitude of stakeholders.”
• “A Three Domain Framework to Innovating Oral Health Care.” This white paper outlines a framework and a new model in dentistry that envisions a more cost-effective, efficient, and equitable system. Each domain includes a strength-weakness-opportunity-threat (SWOT) analysis that highlights opportunities within each domain of oral health transformation.
• “How do you implement value-based care methodologies in dentistry with existing dental organizational paradigms?” Co-authored by Simmons, this article in the Journal of Public Health Dentistry explores the VBC model and then dives into the accountable care organization (ACO) model and the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) model.

Project Management and Budgeting Resources

• “What are the core competencies of a successful project manager?” This article from the Project Management Institute compares the roles and competencies of a project manager across different approaches. This resource provides you with key performance indicators to help a project manager or identified employee oversee the execution of VBOHC.
• “10+ Types of Budget.” “This resource,” said Simmons, “provides you with very broad basic knowledge of different types of budgeting processes.”

Community Engagement and Leadership Resources

• “Evolving Roles of Health Care Organizations in Community Development.” In this article in AMA Journal of Ethics, author Austin J. Hilt “makes an important point about the social determinants of health and the importance of community development,” said Simmons.
• The Knowing-Doing Gap. “This book highlights the importance of turning knowledge into performance,” Simmons said. “Knowing is not always enough.”
• The Checklist Manifesto. “This book emphasizes that under conditions of complexity, checklists are of value and can actually improve performance outcomes,” Simmons said.

Editor’s note: To see the recording of “Are You Ready for the Transition to Value-Based Care?” and access the accompanying slides, visit the CareQuest Institute webinar library.