WEEKLY UPDATE: 05/22/25
The Connecticut Health Council held its annual summit at the University of Saint Joseph in West Hartford last week, convening healthcare executives, policymakers, health insurance leaders, and key stakeholders to deepen their knowledge of value-based care and explore how strategic collaboration can drive improved health outcomes and greater equity across our healthcare ecosystem.
The Strategic Collaborations for Transformative Healthcare summit highlighted the current policy landscape related to value-based care and alternative payment models, provided insights into how these approaches are being adopted across the country, and explored strategies for integrating health equity into care delivery, using data to inform decisions and strengthening partnerships with providers and community organizations to address social drivers of health. Keynote speaker Vanessa Guzman, CEO of SmartRise Health, discussed strategies for aligning equity goals with business objectives, integrating data-driven approaches, and fostering cross-sector partnerships to advance care access, quality, and affordability.
The Connecticut Hospital Association’s (CHA) Mark Schaefer, vice president of system innovation and financing, sat on the “Strengthening Health Equity Through Policy & Systemic Change” panel, which explored policy-driven approaches to reducing disparities, expanding Medicaid’s role in health equity, and fostering payer-provider-community collaboration within Connecticut’s regulatory framework. The panel was moderated by Connecticut Health Foundation President and CEO Tiffany Donelson and included Fatmata Williams, deputy Medicaid director for the Connecticut Department of Social Services (DSS), Dr. Mehul Dalal, chief policy advisor for DSS, and Elisa Neira, senior director of health equity & social determinants of health for the Office of Health Strategy (OHS).
During the discussion, Schaefer explained that to advance health equity, it is imperative that value-based payment models support investments in place-based initiatives and strengthen collaboration and coordination between healthcare providers and community partners, capitalizing on the role that multi-sector health partnerships can play in addressing the root-cause drivers of poor health. Schaefer underscored that current payment models fail to measure and reward improvements in long-term prevention outcomes. A major flaw in today’s value-based payment models, he said, is that payers receive 100% of the financial benefit of most prevention outcomes, not healthcare providers. He suggested a new approach is needed — one that provides substantial and sustained funding to multi-sector health partnerships and reinvests a portion of the savings generated by those collaborations back into joint community health and equity improvement initiatives. Schaefer stressed that addressing social, economic, and environmental drivers of health, including stable employment, housing security, environmental safety, and access to nutritious food, is key to reducing the incidence and prevalence of chronic illness and eradicating health disparities that predominate in low-income communities.
A second panel comprising representatives from commercial insurance companies discussed how health plans are leveraging data-driven strategies and partnerships to close equity gaps and drive clinical transformation.
