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The Medical Alley Association, a not-for-profit trade group in Golden Valley representing makers and buyers of health care technology and the array of professionals who serve the industry, is spearheading a new initiative to find ways to move more quickly toward value-based care.

In an initiative announced Monday, the consulting firm Accenture will collaborate with the association on the first phase of the program, known as the Healthcare Transformation Initiative at Medical Alley, or HTI-MA. The effort will produce an in-depth analysis of the existing market dynamics and the roadblocks to the adoption of value-based care.

Value-based care is health care in which payments go up or down depending on specific measured outcomes. The goal is to provide financial incentives to move away from health care services that generate income for providers but don't actually make patients better.

Although 2010's Affordable Care Act mandated the creation of value-based arrangements between hospitals and government programs like Medicare, that is only one form of value-based deals.

In other cases, private insurers are striking value-based deals with health systems or small coalitions of providers to improve patient health. In some cases, med-tech companies are offering pricing options to hospitals and clinics that take into account how the patient fared after getting the product.

"HTI-MA is an opportunity to bring together leaders from all sectors of health care to define the realities of today's health care system, identify ways in which sectors can collaborate in order to devise solutions, determine inhibitors to change, and, ultimately, pilot, test, and initiate meaningful improvements to health care," Medical Alley Association said Monday in its announcement.

The association isn't sharing financial details. Initially, the report produced as part of Phase 1 of the project will be shared with Medical Alley board members and member groups, and potentially more broadly in the future. Phase 2 will consist of pilot projects and demonstrations of the ideas outlined in the report.

Medical Alley CEO Shaye Mandle said the health care system is "at a critical juncture" in moving to value-based care, and Minnesota's concentration of influential companies in health care are uniquely capable of devising and implementing new initiatives.

"The internal conversations around HTI-MA have energized the Medical Alley community, and I'm looking forward to seeing how we turn conversations into action," Sheri Dodd, the Medtronic vice president who chairs the Medical Alley board, said in the announcement.

Accenture's initial job is to report on synergies in various health care sectors to improve the health care system while decreasing overall costs.

"The audience for the report is leadership across all healthcare sectors including payers, providers and medtech," Accenture digital health and innovation managing director Brian Kalis said via e-mail. "The report will also be relevant to entrepreneurs, investors and other industries looking to drive meaningful change to improve the health and healthcare for people."

Joe Carlson • 612-673-4779