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The Starfield Award

BarbaraStarfield
This prestigious award was established in honor of Dr. Barbara Starfield, Johns Hopkins University distinguished Professor and co-developer of the Johns Hopkins ACG^® System. The Starfield Award acknowledges her legacy by recognizing the best use of the ACG System in three areas:

Addressing multimorbidity in patients and populations
Reducing disparities in the delivery of primary health care
Improving population health

Previous Award Winners

The Starfield Award is given biennially at the ACG System International Conferences.

Discovery Health wins the 2020 Starfield Award.
The 2018 Starfield Award was presented to NHS East Berkshire CCG.
The 2016 Starfield Award was presented to Discovery Limited.
The first Award was presented to Medscheme in April 2014.

2020 Starfield Award

Discovery Health won the 2020 Starfield Award for their project entitled Reducing disparities in the delivery of primary health care – by reducing unnecessary emergency department visits. Discovery Health provides administration and managed care services to over 3 million beneficiaries throughout South Africa. Their innovative work made effective use of the ED classification system and other ACG System variables to increase access to primary care for their members and reduce unnecessary ED visits.

Read their award winning paper here.

Discovery Limited Receives 2016 Starfield Award

Lizelle Steenkamp and Sharon Naidoo received this award on behalf of Discovery Limited in South Africa in recognition of their use of the Johns Hopkins ACG System in their project entitled “Improving Patient Coordination Through Effective Primary Care Management”. Their work was presented at the 2016 ACG System International Conference in San Diego.

Discovery Limited used the Johns Hopkins ACG System to investigate the impact of care coordination on health care costs and patient health outcomes. By modifying the ACG System coordination risk score to better suit the South African population and patterns of care, Discovery Limited was able to measure the impact of primary care provider allocation. Results demonstrated that assigning a primary care doctor to a patient for care coordination improved care coordination as measured by decreased number of specialist visits and decreased number of hospital admissions and readmissions. Improvements were also seen in process measures recorded within diabetes and healthy heart management.

“We are immensely honored to receive this award in recognition of a project using the ACG System to measure the impact of primary care provider allocation,” said Dr. Jonathan Broomberg, CEO of Discovery Health. “For Discovery it is critical that we continue to maximize value for patients. Projects such as these make excellent use of tools such as the ACG System and support our efforts to move towards a patient-centered health care system, which aims to achieve the best patient outcomes at the lowest possible cost,” Broomberg continued.

Discovery Limited’s study also showed that the specialty of the doctor providing the majority of care is not as important as previously thought. Instead, the strength of the relationship between the patient and the provider has a greater influence on successful care coordination. Patients with strong relationships with their primary care providers had better utilization experiences than those with weak relationships. This is independent of insurance benefit design as patients with strong relationships with general practitioners on both unrestricted and restricted plans experienced lower levels of hospital utilization. They also experienced lower care coordination issues.

“Results from this project demonstrated that coordinated care, by assigning a primary care doctor to a patient, lowered overall health care costs and improved patient outcomes,” confirmed Broomberg. Commenting on their work in coordinated care, he said, “Discovery Health places great emphasis on coordination of patient care and the subsequent evidence of improved care and costs. Measured by a decreased number of specialist visits and hospital admissions and readmissions, this project also showed that our patient-care strategy using the Discovery Health Premier Practice model is effective,” he added.

The findings support the Discovery Premier Practice model that was introduced in 2015 and provides an approach that encourages care coordination within the health care system namely the Discovery Premier Network. This network consists of general practitioners who agree to follow evidence based pathways for the management of patients with the following conditions: diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia or coronary artery disease. Enrolled doctors are incentivized to manage their patients’ care. The Premier Network is unique in that it is coupled with Discovery’s wellness program, Vitality. Vitality members are incentivized to reach particular health goals.

“Given Professor Starfield’s conviction of the importance of coordinated care as well as her input during the creation of the ACG System Coordination Markers, it is truly fitting that the work of this year’s Starfield Award winner focusses on these aspects,” said Karen Kinder PhD, MBA; Executive Director, ACG System

To access a summary presentation highlighting their award-winning work, click here.

About the The Starfield Award

The Starfield Award honors the work and legacy of Dr. Barbara Starfield, co-developer of the Johns Hopkins ACG System. We are honored to receive numerous applications from leaders in health care research from across the globe. The award recognizes work focusing on three major aspects of Barbara Starfield’s work; addressing multi-morbidity in patients and populations, reducing disparities in the delivery of primary health care, and improving population health. The ACG System Team is grateful to DST for sponsoring this award. It is awarded biennially and presented at the ACG International User Conference.

Medscheme Receives the Inaugural Starfield Award

Lourens Walters, Cristina Mannie, and Stefan Strydom of Medscheme in South Africa received the 2014 Starfield Award in recognition of their use of the ACG System in their project titled: “A comprehensive care management programme focused on emerging and high risk individuals”.

They presented their work at the 2014 ACG System International Conference in Seattle, WA.

The aim of Medscheme’s research was to identify individuals within lower morbidity groups who were most likely to incur increasing health care costs in the future but are still amenable to care management intervention programs. What differentiated their approach from other methods of identifying patients for care management programs was their recognition that when tracking costs over future time periods for individuals in the lower Resource Utilization Bands (RUBs), the average health care expenditure for these individuals increases dramatically even though their current costs are relatively lower than those associated with higher RUBs.

A predictive model utilizing the ACG System was developed to predict the likelihood of moving to a higher RUB in the future. This new Emerging Risk Model complements their existing care management approach of focusing on high risk individuals.

By intervening on high risk individuals identified by applying their existing High Risk Predictive Model which also utilizes the ACG System, their randomized controlled study observed financial savings and a reduction in utilization of hospital services. Individuals identified by the Emerging Risk Model are likely to benefit from similar interventions due to a similar disease profile. A randomized controlled study is planned to measure intervention outcomes.

About the The Starfield Award

The Starfield Award honors the work and legacy of Dr. Barbara Starfield, co-developer of the Johns Hopkins ACG System. This year we were honored to receive numerous applications from leaders in health care research from across the globe. The award recognizes work focusing on three major aspects of Barbara Starfield’s work; addressing multi-morbidity in patients and populations, reducing disparities in the delivery of primary health care, and improving population health. The ACG System Team is grateful to DST for sponsoring this award. It is awarded biennially and presented at the ACG International User Conference.

Application Format

Information about Applicant
Names of main authors, organization name and e-mail addresses
Please note: Applications will have all identifying information about the authors and organizations removed before they are shared with judges for review. Please be aware of this in your writing, and do not include any identifying logos or similar as part of the application submission.
Title of Project
Abstract/Summary
A brief overview of the project that highlights the purpose of the project; the main approach or methods used; a summary of the outcomes or the result of the project and the main findings; the benefits achieved, or the conclusions reached.
Introduction
Could include: some background to the project; place the study in a broad context and highlight why it is important; define the purpose of the work and its significance; describe the main aims and objectives of the project; highlight the principal conclusions.
Methodologies Employed
A description of the work undertaken and examples of any analyses that were done to support the project.
Results and Outcomes Achieved
A description of the results/findings, how they can be interpreted in the context of the project. Any limitations of the project and methodology used should also be discussed. Diagrams, charts and tables can be included in this section and do not contribute to the word count.
Discussion and Conclusions
A discussion of the results/outcomes and how they can be interpreted in the context of the project’s aims and objectives. The implications of the outcomes, their applicability to other organizations and their generalisability should also be discussed.
Project Start and Completion Dates
Other information
This section can be used for acknowledgements, references and/or hyperlinks to other relevant documents. Reference to any supplementary information included as an appendix should be made here. Please limit the number of appendices to two.

Further Information

Further information is available via your local ACG System representative, or from Chad Abrams for applicants from North America or Alan Thompson for applicants outside of North America.

Apply for Starfield Award

Starfield Award Application

Johns Hopkins ACG® System Team Honors NHS East Berkshire CCG With 2018 Starfield Award

Winning project created a new type of health care program that is delivered within a primary care setting

NHS East Berkshire Clinical Commissioning Group (formerly the Slough Clinical Commissioning Group), located in Great Britain, won this year’s Starfield Award for their project entitled “Population Profiling to Support a New Model of Clinical Delivery.” The award was announced at the Johns Hopkins ACG System’s 2018 International Conference, held in San Antonio, Texas.

The Johns Hopkins ACG System analyzes health care data, the results of which improve accuracy and fairness in evaluating provider performance, identifies patients at high risk, forecasts health care utilization and sets equitable payment rates. It has been used in commercial, government and research settings worldwide, longer and more extensively than any other health care data analytics system, impacting close to 200 million lives in 30 countries.

The NHS East Berkshire project used the ACG System to identify people at risk of hospital admission and then provide them with a care and support plan. Their impressive analytical work resulted in the creation of a new type of care program that is delivered within a primary care setting.

The Starfield Award, established in honor of Barbara Starfield, M.D., a Johns Hopkins University Distinguished Professor and co-developer of the Johns Hopkins ACG System, honors her legacy by recognizing the best use of the ACG System in three key areas of her work: addressing multi-morbidity in individual patients and populations; reducing disparities in the delivery of primary health care; and improving population health.

“We are honored to receive this award named for one of the true pioneers in population health analytics, and we are delighted to see the work of the CCG being recognized internationally,” said Dr. Jim O’Donnell, NHS clinical lead for the Slough locality. “We have worked hard to plan for the health needs of the population we serve using evidence about the way patients have historically used services.”

“The ACG system has allowed us to support patients more proactively,” said Sangeeta Saran, East Berkshire CCG’s associate director of planned care. “This award demonstrates what we can achieve by working together.”

“We congratulate the team for successfully converting ACG System data output into actionable information and then using it to inform their population health management approach,” said Kumar Subramaniam, executive director of population health analytics at Johns Hopkins HealthCare Solutions.

About the The Starfield Award

UK CCG scoops top international award.
Access the Insights (HIMSS Europe) article PDF here.

CCG praised for use of population health management software.
Access the Digital Health article PDF here.

The Starfield Award

Previous Award Winners

2020 Starfield Award

Read their award winning paper here.

Discovery Limited Receives 2016 Starfield Award

About the The Starfield Award

Medscheme Receives the Inaugural Starfield Award

About the The Starfield Award

Application Format

Further Information

Starfield Award Application

Starfield Award Application

Johns Hopkins ACG® System Team Honors NHS East Berkshire CCG With 2018 Starfield Award

Winning project created a new type of health care program that is delivered within a primary care setting

About the The Starfield Award

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